#I’d like to get maybe 6000 steps if at all possible but that’s not it

[sluttish-armchair]

I feel like I need to do something else but I don’t know what it is 🤔

[treybriggsthewriter]

This makes me nervous, but I’m going to post it. I’m going to try my best to achieve my goals. I’ve put in a ton of work already, so I’m looking for additional help. 

From the campaign:

My name is Trey Briggs, and I'm a black woman who writes paranormal horror, speculative fiction, and other types of fiction. You can find my stories at MaybeTrey , Astrid the Devil , and on Instagram , Medium , and Wattpad .

My stories are aimed at black people who want to read dark stories that focus on original black characters that are complex and interesting. I genuinely believe Black audiences deserve a variety of genres to delve into, and I want to introduce them to paranormal horror, dark romance, and fantasy that they haven't gotten enough of in the past. I also believe that this can be done across multiple mediums, and I spend my money with black creative professionals to make these experiences extend beyond my words. For the last two years, I've run my stories on sites and Instagram to great reception. I like to craft complex experiences that offer looks at character backgrounds, side and backstories, full websites for each title, and more. I also provide encyclopedias, maps, audio journals, and other ways to get into each world. During these last few years, I've run into a lot of walls, jumped a lot of hurdles, and tried my best. I've worked with amazing black artists, voice actors, and actresses, musicians, designers, and more. I trust my ability to run a project, especially when it comes to planning and finding talent. My overall goal is to run a team of black creatives that crafts novels, graphic novels, audio experiences, and animated series for a dedicated audience.

Why I Need Help Long story short: I have the skill, I have the marketing/website building/business experience, and I have the drive. There's a lot I can do on my own, but there's also a lot that gets left behind because I don't have the money I need to proceed at a steady pace. I need help with funding so I can focus, hire the right people, and craft these stories the way they deserve to be crafted. I have thus far spent over $60,000 of my own money on my projects over the past two years - the writing and site-building are easy for me; the rest has to be hired out. I have art, site costs for hosting, domains, templates, specific plugins, and maintenance, audio (and vocal artists to pay), musical, and editing costs. I'm by no means rich or even particularly financially stable. I have taken on tons of extra clients for my digital marketing business, transcribed hundreds of hours of audio for dirt cheap, and taken out personal loans. I even worked a second full-time job along with my full-time business last year to afford to produce the content I love. It's starting to take a toll on my mental health. I plan on continuing to fund these projects out of pocket (and finding ways to do so), but having financial help, however big or small, would allow me to move a lot faster and with less stress. It would let me flesh out ideas and concepts that I have had to scrap because I can only physically handle so much extra work. I run a full-time marketing business from home, homeschool my autistic 10-year-old, and generally have a busy life. Some of the strain is taking a toll on me, and I don't want to give up. Having some financial backing could allow me to drop a client or two after a few months and focus on the work I love to do.

How You Can Help I mainly need a start—a sort of base. I want to emphasize that I plan to continue to provide the main bulk of funding for my projects. I know my goals are ambitious, and I know each step will take time and money. I welcome any help to make the process smoother and to get around the initial hurdles. I'd like to have ebooks and novels offered on my site by the end of the year (along with the free serials and stories). Funding means that I can broaden the projects, include more free aspects to my sites, and secure direct financing through sales of ebooks and audiobooks sooner. It also means that I can offer MORE stories, whether they are online only or fully fleshed out novels and sites. I am swamped with trying to work enough to cover all my bills and creative projects, so I lose a lot of time I could spend plotting and writing. If I have better funding, I can get my stories out quicker (and with fewer mistakes).

The Initial Stories Let's talk about my stories! If you're familiar with my work already, you can skip to the next section. My main story site is Maybe Trey . Currently, I have two big titles and a bunch of smaller ones that I am seeking help with funding: Astrid the Devil

Astrid the Devil is the complicated story of a girl who inherits not only her family's features and DNA, but their fears, struggles, and fights. It's the story of a condition called Devil Syndrome, the women who suffer it, and the monsters that devour them. It's the story of the fight to save the people you love at the expense of innocent lives. At its core, Astrid the Devil is the story of a woman who inherits the chaos of three generations before her. It's a look at what is truly passed down to our children, and how they're left to fight our battles in the aftermath of our failures. It's the tale of an indescribable monster and the women who struggle to defeat it. It's a journey into how their every decision could save or destroy an entire world. Astrid the Devil is the story of Astrid Snow, but her story can't be told without the story of the women before her.

Vicious: On MaybeTrey  and The Vicious site (in progress)

Somewhere, a war is brewing.  That's the only thing that's for sure to Junnie Gorton, a young horned girl suffering from a debilitating disease called Horn Rot. She typically dealt with her low survival rate and abnormally large horns by escaping the world with her best friend, Lewish. Now she's forced to figure out which side is which, save her entire species, and find out the truth behind the sudden uprising in her home. Horn Rot, a highly contagious and violent disease spreading through horned people, is causing mass amounts of madness and death. Normal horns grow in ways that will pierce, suffocate, and maim their owners, and the only one who can stop it is Junnie's mother, Lyria. As Lyria falls deeper and deeper into an anti-social revolt, the country reels. While Junnie broods, her entire species must prepare for mass extinction. Her brother plots with a group of people with less than good intentions and Lewish is quieter than usual. In a civilization brought up on extreme violence and competition, Junnie and Lewish try their best not to get swallowed by their culture, their lives, or their horns.

Bunni and Bosque :

Bunni lives. Bosque dies. We all know how this story starts. Bunni is obsessed with destruction and death. She comes from the healthiest Horned family in her country. She's from the oldest, purest bloodline in the world. And she's bored with it. Bunni spends most of her time trying to escape her duties as a pureblood. She wants things dirty, messy, foul, inconsistent. Having parents that are willing to kill to keep their bloodline pure is annoying. Knowing that she'll live a long, full life, produce more perfect children, and die unscathed is agonizing. Bunni wants something to mourn. We all know how this story ends. Bosque is destined to die an agonizing death, alone on his family's land. He's watched everyone he loved and grew up with perish. Sometimes it was because of their disease. Sometimes it was because of the malice and hatred of others. While he's absolutely withdrawn and satisfied with his life, Bosque has never had a chance to live it. He spends his days basking in the sun, bathing in wood baths, and contemplating the end. Bosque isn't interested in joining the rest of the world. He'd rather die out, alone, where his family belonged. Bosque wants to go peacefully. But neither expected to meet each other one day in a supermarket. Neither expected to fall in love, lust, and every vicious and dirty thing between. Neither expected to be so right for each other, all while being wrong for everyone else. You know the end of this story. Bunni lives, Bosque dies. But maybe something will change.

My smaller titles, Bunni and Bosque /Aite and Jude, can be found at Maybe Trey .

The Business Plan

The initial phase of my business plan is to get the sites populated with ebooks and audiobooks for sale. I also have prints that can be sold. Right now, I am in the audience-building phase while I save up for editing the full novels. 

In terms of an actual business with which to publish the stories, I already have a registered publication company in Illinois: Wolfless Studios LLC. I took this step earlier this year with plans to self-publish Astrid and Vicious. So that is paid for and done.

I have also gotten initial editing done on the first six chapters of Astrid, though it will need to be edited from the beginning again once everything is said and done. I've spent over $1000 on that so far, and it would go a lot faster if I didn't need to save up to edit each chapter.

Astrid the Devil is fully plotted, outlined, and only needs the last three chapters. Bunni and Bosque and Vicious are newer, but plotted and already deep into character development (all being shared across social and Wattpad for audience growth). Aite and Jude and other shorts are plotted, and three other unshared stories are plotted and at the editing phase.

Other costs and ways I would use the funding (I would still put in my own money and do as much on my own as possible):

Initial $30K

$6000 - $7000 Line and Copy edits for Astrid (currently at 250000+ words/expecting over 300000 at $0.02 rate)

$6000 - $7000 Line and Copy Edits for Vicious

$3000 - $4000 Line and Copy Edits for Bunni and Bosque

ISBN Purchases (Separate ISBN for each format for each book) - https://www.myidentifiers.com/identify-protect-your-book/barcode

Covers for Astrid/Vicious/B&B Print Versions

Site Hosting Costs and Maintenance for 2 Years

Site completion for all stories

Initial store and app development

40K - Marketing and Graphic Novels

Social, Print, and Web ads

Email Marketing Campaigns 

Booths at Decatur Book Festival (depending on COVID)

Social ads and promos

50 to 60 pages

First two chapters offered as free promo with email sign-ups

Audio journals for each character

Situational audio journals

Encyclopedia for Astrid (finishing up)/Vicious

65K - Hires and Next Phases

Ability to hire a Full-Time Editor 

Audio Series for each (professionally done)

Vicious Graphic Novel

Additional Title Added

Short animations for both Vicious and Astrid (with plans to fund more with book sales)

Fleshed out Story Sections (Novellas for each character of each series)

Short comic series with Astrid and Vicious side characters

Possible to plan out monthly subscription service with new stories and 'story package' deliveries

75K -

Astrid the Devil Graphic Novel

Vicious Graphic Novel

Astrid the Devil Animated Short

Ability to hire part-time Web Developer

Additional bigger title

Anything Over - I ascend into pure light. And also, I can add titles, cover more mediums, and eventually expand my publishing to other black creatives.

From there, I should be able to handle the funding via sales of books, comics, audio, and more. Again, I will always offer mostly free content across the sites.

I believe in proof of concept, and I have diehard fans on my social platforms. With no outside funding, I've been able to a lot on my own. I'd love to expand my business into one that does the same for other black authors, artists, voice actors, and animators somewhere down the line. 

Thank you so much for your consideration. I appreciate all my readers, present and future, and I appreciate any help!

See incentives and more on the actual campaign: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-trey-publish-black-paranormal-horror-stories

Thank you so much!

[nossbean]

Exchange recs 🥳🥳🥳

I haven’t read too many of the @jaime-brienne-fic-exchange gifts this year and still have to leave comments but I wanted to rec a few from the marvellous things I’ve read!

dream deep heavy sleeper (dream light heavy heart) [book canon] this fic is so goddamn soft. The author tagged it as unlikely post-LSH fic and I am wilfully closing my eyes to that and choosing to believe in the softness! A 5+1 fic where Brienne deliriously wakes on the Quiet Isle, doubtful of the feeling that Jaime was with her, only to wake another night, non-deliriously, and discover it wasn’t just a dream. This is a quiet, contemplative, sweet fic, with such a tender touch for Brienne and leaning into the romance of the pairing whilst (I assert!) cleaving to a core of reality for them. There are such lush descriptions of their shared space in their little cottage: the soft light and the physical closeness. I loved it a lot, it’s been added to my list of comfort reads! (4k, T)

Where I Cannot Stand [AU] a Firefly fusion, aka a thoroughly fun adventure-romance space western, though I admit my favourite part by far is the Jaime voice...! This is a really warm and very funny Jaime, more settled than he often is, surrounded by a found family he’s carefully built, and then Brienne turns up transporting a mystery! Noble, stubborn, kinda idealistic, and a terrible liar with excellent musculature? How can he resist?? Another element I adore is the cast of characters: Jon, Satin, Oberyn, Ellaria and Jeyne Westerling. Jaime loves them all and they love him back, and again Brienne as the newcomer is warmly welcomed and in amongst the plot shenanigans is a very cute crew-tries-their-hand-at-matchmaking thread with, um, mixed (if adorable and funny) success. Even if you haven’t seen Firefly, the worldbuilding is accessible and clear. It’s a pacey romp which left me smiling! (12.5k, T)

Yours are the Sweetest [book canon] another post-LSH fic! I am... so into this author’s prose. To call it sparse is totally incorrect, but it’s got a stripped down quality to it which works beautifully for the story and accentuates both POVs in ways I really loved sunking into. In this story, Brienne must trade Sansa to LSH for the lives of Jaime, Pod and Hyle. An intriguing premise to start, which the author plays out so damn well. There are also a few questions left unanswered, which was a bold choice that works really well and is (maybe paradoxically?) very satisfying to read! Ahhh I’m fretting I’m not managing to convey what I want with this rec but I also feel it’s a fic that’s best just -- experienced…! It’s lingered in the back of my brain like a song since I read it. (8k, E)

Declarations of the Everyday Type [AU] This one is just... super adorable! Fluff to the max, a delightful soulmark AU whereby one soulmate can write on themselves and their soulmate then sees correspondingly on their own skin. An established, wonderfully domestic Jaime and Brienne utilize in the most them way possible (which is to say: very enthusiastic, a little wry, a little practical, and very sweet) There’s also very fun baking involved and very fun soccer rounding things out. The author conveys established part of their established relationship deftly, and the whole fic feels so comfortable and lived in. Short, sweet, marvellous, and another I’m looking forward to returning to for comfort reading! (1k, T)

False Knights on the Road [book canon] and another post-LSH (Really such spoils this year…!) that I enjoyed immensely! The author captured a lot of the book tone and characterization all whilst painting a portrait of Brienne and Jaime collecting wayward children on their journey and honestlyyyy I could not get enough of it. That said, it isn’t exactly a fluffy fic for all there are fluffy moment: it deals with the fallout of LSH between JB in ways which ring (and indeed, the author’s Jaime voice caught so many of book!Jaime’s ticks, I’d have been wondering GRRM but for certain stunning turns of phrase which George could never, with due respect) as well as picking up themes around war, per AFFC. I particularly love how Jaime and Brienne’s relationship unfolded throughout: carefully and slowly, and the themes the author explores for them were pitch perfect and made me ache in the best, bittersweet way. I’ve been thinking about the JB themes (honesty and acceptance and, of course, love and what it looks like for JB) and what the author does with them since I finished it several days ago. Rounding things out: the children…! The dynamics between everyone is so well drawn and interesting and frequently very sweet. I could have read another 25k very cheerfully (25k, T)

Queens of Love and Beauty [AU] this fic is fun and pacey and so swiftly immersive! When Jaime steps in at the last minute for a photo shoot, he’s brought into Brienne’s photo boutique. Delightful setting with lovely characterization and lovelier themes around asserting oneself for oneself. Also there’s a fab through-line about corsets which was very fun and I made audible noises when it played out because it was so satisfying! The author has a light touch mingled with great descriptions of clothes, and lovely character notes and beats. And the romantic tension between JB is very, very cute and wonderfully played. (6000 words exactly which is also very pleasing, T)

[constilationn]

Ready To Run 🌬

A/N: So I got this request at the beginning of the week and I've been working on it since then. I’m really not sure about this one guys, it’s a bit of a different style and it’s 6000 words because it took on a life of its own. (Sorry not Sorry) Anway, I’d love some feedback - please - but enjoy guys!

Rating: M

Warnings: Naughty words, sensitive subject - abuisve relationship 

Summary: This was the request I had: Reader is abused by parents or boyfriend and runs straight into the arms of Poe Dameron. 

@jacquelineprins this one’s for you 💓

You’re lost as you walk, turning the corner from the hanger and starting back towards the quarters in a quiet sort of daze because your arm’s throbbing underneath your jacket and you’re sure there’s blood by now, there must be. You want to look, you do, you want to see exactly what’s he done this time, what you’ll have to cover up from everyone else but you can’t bring yourself to lift the cuff of your jacket beyond the upper part of your wrist. You don’t want to make it real again because there’s a part of you that pretends it’s a dream whenever it happens, you can deal with it that way. You’re strong, of course you are, but there’s something about this that you just can’t handle. Either way, you have to pull up your sleeve and look. You have to.

You shouldn’t be surprised when you lift your sleeve, but you blanch anyway because your arm is red and sticky and the cuts go deep, almost like lashes of a whip. Your mind turns and turns and you’re wondering how you let this happen, because you were never the type of person to let someone else walk all over you, so what went wrong?

It’s your name on his lips that pulls you back, soft as he catches up to you in the hall, and you yank the sleeve of your jacket back down over your arm because he can’t see this, not now.

Poe Dameron catches your arm, pulls you closer to him and you try not to wince, letting a hiss of pain out between your teeth disguised by a smile as he grins back at you. He doesn’t know there’s anything wrong, he won’t know. No one will. It’s one of the policies, one of the stipulations of this relationship you’ve found yourself trapped in. No one finds out, not even Poe.

“Hey.” You make the first move, have to, so you don’t seem suspiciously quiet or upset or whatever it is you’re feeling right now because as it stands, you don’t even know. But you never do when it comes to this.

“Hey sweetheart,” sweetheart, that’ll come up later, you’re sure of it. It has before and for no good reason. Poe Dameron is a flirt, it’s a universally known fact and even if he felt anything towards you, the entire base knows your taken. It’s not an option anymore either because it’s like your property now. You live with him, with Charlie, share your quarters, share missions, share lives. Although it’s not really sharing, is it? Not when he acts like he owns you, parades you around like a prize and hurts you when you misbehave. It’s like you’re a dog, that’s probably the best way to describe it, rewarded when your good and punished when your bad. It’s hysterical, in another life you’d laugh and in another life still you’d punch the living daylights out of Charlie and tell him to never treat you like that again. But it’s not an option, not this time, and you’ve been beaten down so many times that you don’t stand a chance. Not anymore.

Poe clears his throat, polite just like always as he interrupts your stream of thoughts. “Can you do me a favor?”

Anything, you want to scream, I’ll do anything for you if you can get me out of here, away from this life. But you square your shoulders instead and ignore the wildness of your thoughts, muster another smile and paint into onto your face so it stays there even when he leaves. “Sure.”

You’re expecting him to say something about engineering, about fixing his ship just like always. You’re not expecting him to ask you to accompany him on a mission and you’re definitely not expecting him to tell you that you leave tonight. You know you’re staring at him like he’s got ten heads and you know you need to stop but you can’t because he’s just offered you an escape, he’s offered you an out and maybe, just maybe, this can be your salvation. This can be how you survive.

You can’t stop the grin that breaks across you face, but then again you don’t really try to. You resist the urge to jump into his arms because this is it, he’s given you a perfect chance to escape and, god, Poe Dameron has never looked so beautiful. “Please. Yes. I’d love to.” The words tumble from your lips and your grinning like an idiot but you don’t care, not anymore. You hug him then, you can’t help it, and the warmth you feel in his arms has nothing on Charlie who only ever lays a hand on you to hurt you.

“It’s nothing exciting, sweetheart,” Poe chuckles but he looks so fucking happy that you can’t bring yourself to care about the repeat of the nickname and you don’t let go of him, you can’t, not yet. “We’ll just be doing some surveillance, maybe blowing some stuff up.”

You nod, practically vibrating on the spot with this newfound energy. Your brain is going and going and going with endless possibilities and chances and opportunities. You want to kiss him, and not for the first time, but none of that matters at the moment. Nothing matters except you and Poe. Maybe you can tell him, maybe you can make a confession and beg him for help. He’s a good guy, he’s you’re friend so what’s stopping you? What’s fucking stopping you?

“Hey,” Fuck, does that voice make you freeze. It’s not a malicious one but accusation drips from Charlie’s tone and you feel your entire body just stop. Poe bristles next to you, crossing his arms because he doesn’t like the man, no one does and a lot of them question what a nice girl like you is doing with an arse like that. You couldn’t tell them even if you wanted to. You know what the punishment is for that.

“Charlie.” Your voice is weak, a pathetic attempt to seem excited and Poe quirks an eyebrow but says nothing. “Hey.”

You swear your heart stops when he walks towards you and it’s like this long, horrible drawn out thing until he reaches your side and Poe dutifully steps a little to the left so Charlie can throw an arm around your shoulder. It’s only been a few hours since you’ve seen him, since you landed back at the hangar after he’d decided to take his anger out on your arm. It’s only been a few hours of peace, of bliss, and you thought that maybe it could be enough. You’re wrong.

“I’ll see you later, sweetheart.” You try not to wince as Poe gave Charlie a nod and turns away. You let your eyes close as Charlie waits for Poe’s footsteps to fade completely. You know it’s coming so it shouldn’t surprise you as much as it does when Charlie rounds on you in the middle of the hall and lands a heavy slap on your cheek.

“Sweetheart?” It’s the way he says it, the way he relishes the word on his tongue and the look in his eye when you shrink away from him because he knows he’s got you and you can’t get away from him or his accusations because he was right there when Poe said it. “Sweetheart.” He pauses, considers and then nods with a definitive air, watching you with sharp eyes. You have no idea what move you’re supposed to make now, you don’t know what the right answer is.

You do know that when he takes hold of your arm, shakes it and drags you down the hallway to the quarters, you’d rather be anywhere else but here.

Charlie shoves the door open, let’s your arm go and pushes you into the room so roughly that you stumble and have to catch yourself against the metal foot of the bed. There are tears on your cheeks, falling to your lips and there’s salt and blood and you’re losing your bearings just a little. “Fuck.” It’s a weak word, falls from your lips as your arm hits the bed. Charlie smirks, like he’s pleased with his handiwork but you can’t fight him, can’t say a word. You know that. And so does he.

“Charlie.” You start but it’s not enough to get rid of that glare in his eye. Your attempt is weak anyway, it never would’ve worked but you had to try. You always have to try. Maybe that’s how you ended up here.

“Shut up.” His words are like fire, spitting all over you and you cower, you can’t help it. He looks absolutely murderousand you’ll know what’ll happen next. It’s nothing new, of course it isn’t, but the way you feel never goes away. This nervous flip of your stomach never goes away.

It wasn’t always like this. That’s what you tell yourself, that you’d made the right decision once upon a time and it’s not your fault that this is happening. Five years ago you were just a bright eyed pilot, looking to crush the First Order. Charlie was a technician, insisted he’d work on your ship and you fell for it. You fell for his good looks and his charm and the smile that you never see anymore. People had warned you, of course, but you didn’t listen to them. Hell, you didn’t listen to anyone back then. God you wished you had. Maybe none of this would’ve happened.

It’s been two years since the first time he hit you. You’d been laughing about something stupid, probably with Poe because back then you were happy. You’d felt his fingers dig into your thigh first and when you’d gotten back to your quarters, he’d hit you until your face burnt. You didn’t tell anyone, thought you could survive it because you’d never let anyone walk over you before and why should Charlie be any different? You were strong back then too, a fighter, and you were so sure you were strong enough to face it. You were so goddamn sure. But when he told you to never say a word, threatened you because it was your word against his and who would believe a stupid little girl, your world fucking crumbled. So you explained the injuries away and hid them but you didn’t say a word. Not once.  

And now you were trapped in your own personal hell.

Charlie gives you a smirk, a sick, twisted smile and stalks towards you from where you’re still learning heavily against the foot of the bed. “Let me see you arm.”

“No...no, I—“

“Let me see you arm.” His voice is deadly, words ripping through the room as he tilts his head and meets your eyes. “Sweetheart.”

It’s that word that makes your legs give out and your one the floor in a heap watching him when he crouches down but not doing a single fucking thing to stop him because what can you do? His fingers close around your wrist and you flinch, don’t try to hide it, as he pulls the jacket from your shoulder with his other hand and deposits it on the floor next to you. The cuff of your shirt reaches your wrist and Charlie’s gentle when he pulls it up, rolling it to your elbow and taking a sharp breath when he sees the mess of your arm. It’s worse than an hour ago, turned an ugly purple and red, darker blood dried across the top of the deep lashes that paint your arm. Charlie nods, eyes flicking from your eyes to your arm and all you can do is sit and watch as his fingertips run up and down your arm. “Jesus.” It’s his voice, a breath, and you snatch your arm away.

“Stop.” But he won’t, he takes your arm back with cold fingers and admires, fucking admires, the mess of your arm. You can’t remember the specific reason for this particular beating but you’re willing to bet it had something to do with Poe and the two of you on your mission. Charlie’s usually there, lurking in the back to keep an eye on you because god forbid you actually get rid of him for good. Maybe you were too comfortable with Poe, maybe you got cocky or maybe you said something stupid and Charlie didn’t like it. Whatever you’d done, he’d taken you aside on the mission and lashed your arm with his belt before giving you an affectionate little pat and telling you to run along. It was an almost comical exchange when you think about it. That doesn’t change the pain though. Nothing changes that.

“You want me to kiss it better?”

“No.” You whisper, trying to move your arm. “No.”

“Aw, c’mon.” His lips touch the deepest cut on your arm and you hiss, biting your lip so you don’t say anything, so you don’t make it worse. “Let me make you feel good.”

“No!” You shove him off, reaching for the bed to pull yourself up because your entire body is shaking and you’re not sure you can pull yourself up.

You back away from Charlie who’s sitting on the floor just staring at you and your back hits the wall as he stands up. “What the fuck,” and he’s back, stalking across the room, “was that?”

“I don’t...” your voice trembles, “I don’t want this anymore.” You can’t believe those word have just left your mouth, you can’t believe that you’re standing across from Charlie telling him that you don’t want him anymore.

When Charlie laughs, a chill runs through every single cell in your body. It’s like your blood freezes and you feel like you could just die on the spot. “What makes you think you get to make that decision.”

This, this is where you trip up because you haven’t rehearsed a speech, you’re not confident in your ability or hit him with the facts and logic. The truth is, you’re terrified, you are absolutely fucking terrified because you’re starting to realize there is no way out. It doesn’t matter how many missions you go on with Poe, how many escapes you think you’ve made. He will never let you go. You can’t believe it’s taken you this long to figure it out.

“Charlie,” he knows your about to beg, he can see it in your face. “Charlie, please. I can’t do this anymore.”

Charlie shakes his head, amusement dancing in his eyes. “Go on your little surveillance mission. We’ll talk about this later, sweetheart.” That’s all you need to hear. You snatch your jacket from the floor, throwing the door open and fleeing down the corridor. You hate how scared you are. You hate how you feel so small and weak and powerless every time you’re near him. Most of all, you hate him.

It’s quiet as you head back to the hangar, passing the canteen that’s bursting with people. That’s where Charlie will go, when he’s calmed down and hashed out a plan for later. He won’t let you go. He won’t take this little show of resistance at all. He’ll use it to break you, crush you even more until your nothing but a shell of what you used to be.

The hangars dark when you get there and you don’t see Poe standing there at first, too focused on the future, too focused on what Charlie will do to you. “Hey sweetheart.” Sweetheart, that name on his lips sounds so much sweeter than on Charlie’s but it makes your stomach flip. You look up to Poe, plastering a smile onto your face and Poe grins, pats the side of the ship and offers you his hand. “You ready?”

Yes! You want to scream, yes more than anything because you are ready, you’re ready to blow this place to shit and never, ever look back. But you can’t say that, you can’t say any of that so you shrug, “Sure,” and take his hand. It surprises you, how warm and soft his skin is, how light his touch is. You can’t help yourself when you compare Poe to Charlie. Even Poe’s hair, warm rich curls seem a thousand times better than Charlie’s stupid blond man-bun. But it’s the eyes, you think, that do it for you. Poe’s eyes are beautiful, so beautiful and you could get lost in them for days. You mother used to say that you can always tell a monster by his eyes and, oh, how right she’d been.

You slide into the seat next to Poe, careful, like you’re holding your breath as the dull hum of the engine starts beneath you. You feel Poe glance over, feel his eyes trace patterns across your cheek. “You can talk, you know.”

“I know.” God, how can your voice sound so small? Where have you gone; how have you lost yourself so spectacularly? You feel like a bomb, just ticking and ticking until one day it’ll all be too much and you’ll just explode and take out everything around you. Including yourself.

The ship breaks through the vines, soars up and you watch as Poe steers easily, marvel at the routine movements of his hands. It’ll just be surveillance tonight, making sure no one breaches the perimeter of the base. But you don’t mind. It gets you out, gets you away from Charlie and you have a suspicion that Poe knows that too.

“What happened to you?” You’re not expecting that. Of all the things Poe could’ve asked you, that would not have even been a guess.

“What do you mean?” He rolls his eyes, turning to face you and you raise an eyebrow, reply in a quiet voice. “Eyes on the sky, flyboy.”

He shakes his head, but there’s a smile on his lips. “You ever heard of command pilot?”

“Oh, clever.” You grin. “Dangerous though, isn’t it?”

“Stop changing the subject.”

You learn forward and quirk an eyebrow. “What subject would that be, exactly?” You want to hear him say it, you have to, because he must know what’s going on by now. He must.

“You know what I’m talking about.”  

It’s like you’re not even on the ship anymore. It’s just you and Poe and you’re starting to think that maybe you can trust him. He knows anyway, doesn’t he? Isn’t that what this has all boiled down to, the fact that he wants some sort of confession from you? There are tears in your eyes as you shift in your seat, watching the moons rise above the base. Poe doesn’t do anything, just waits. Finally you turn back to him and when you speak your voice is thick with tears. “I don’t think you know what you’re talking about.”

“Charlie.” And Poe’s voice is like ice. “Tell me about Charlie.”

“I...”

Poe reaches out, takes your hand and all you want to do is melt into him. “You can trust me.”

“I can’t.“

“Yes you can.” he gives your hand a squeeze, running his thumb along your skin and there are tears falling from your eyes too quickly to stop them. Poe coaxes it out of you, eventually, because it takes you a minute to trust him and realize that you’re safe with him; takes you a minute to realize you’re safe with someone.

You’re sniffing as you shrug your jacket off but Poe’s there, catching your tears on his thumb like they’re falling stars. He takes your jacket from you gently and you look up to him as he smiles, warm brown eyes locking on yours because he needs you to know that your safe. He needs you to know that he cares about you.

Your fingers shake when you touch your sleeve, you can see the material move as you drag it up over your arm and bunch it at the elbow. Poe stiffens beside you and he takes a sharp breath. Your arm looks like a slab of meat as you stare at it this time around; the skin angry. Tears fall fast and hot but Poe still doesn’t move until you try to roll your sleeve down and he catches your wrist with the lightest touch possibly because he won’t be the one to hurt you. He refuses.

He clears his throat and forces out one word. “When?”

It shouldn’t be so hard to tell him. You should be jumping at the opportunity because Poe figured it out by himself, you didn’t say a word so this isn’t your fault. You’ll doubt Charlie will see it that way but it’s too late now. He’s seen your arm, he’s seen your tears and he got the confession from you. “A few hours ago. On the mission.”

“What did he use?” Poe’s suspiciously calm but he hasn’t let go of you yet, linked your fingers together because you’re not alone in this anymore.

There’s no hesitation anymore. “His belt.”

“Sweetheart,” Poe dips his head. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

You shake your head, cracking the smallest smile. “You really think that would work out for me?”

Poe shakes his head, anger rippling across his face as his jaw flexes. “I’ll kill him.”

“No!” Your voice is shrill, bordering on hysteria as panic explodes in the pit of your stomach and Poe cocks an eyebrow in confusion. “No, you can’t. You can’t. Charlie won’t...he won’t like it.”

“I don’t give a shit what he’ll like.” Poe pulls you from your seat into his so that you’re on his lap. “We’re in this together now, me and you. You’re not gonna do this alone anymore.”

It’s then you let yourself fall into Poe, let yourself sob into the crook of his neck because this means the world to you and he must know that. Poe keeps his hand in yours, uses his free hand to run his fingers through your hair and down your spine until you’ve pulled it together enough to sit up and wipe your eyes. “Poe, I...”

He nods, you don’t have to say anything else but the smile he gives you seems to light up the entire ship.

And then he kisses you.

You kiss him back almost instantly because you haven’t felt this way in so long. You haven’t been touched like this, lovedlike this in so long and Poe is like this beautiful breath of fresh air that’s swept into your life and now you’re a seeing clearly for the first time in what seems like forever.

You pull away after a few second, tears dry on your face but that doesn’t matter because Poe’s looking at you like you created the entire galaxy. You want to take Poe’s hand and walk back into the base and never think about Charlie again but it’s not that easy. It’ll never be that easy.

“You okay?” Poe’s voice has your knees weak in the best kind of way and you give a little chuckle.

“I’m better than okay.” You can feel yourself coming back to life, can feel that fire and that light that’s been buried depo beneath the surface this entire time. You hesitate, “I need your help.”

“Sweetheart, I’ll do anything you ask me.” He smiles but his eyes are dull, don’t shine like they usually do.

“What’s wrong?”

You’ve never seen Poe hesitate like this, his mind turning like he’s fighting with himself over what to say to you. “I’ve been...” he stops, clears his throat and corrects himself. “I am in love with you.” You think the world stops, just freezes, and you give a little shake of your head in disbelief. You open your mouth to reply but Poe cuts you off. “I’ve been in love with you since that mission in Naboo when you shot that Stormtrooper in the face and then took a bullet for me. I’ve been in love with you since you started to learn how to fly and you got so excited about it that you smacked  Lana in the face by accident and gave her a black eye.” He chuckles, mostly to himself, and you grin along with him. His smile fades a little then and he continues. “I saw it happen, y’know, with Charlie. Watching that fire in your eyes go out was the worst thing I’ve ever seen.”

“I...” you keep shaking you head because that’s the only thing you can do that makes sense. It’s confusing, it’s unexpected but it’s fucking wonderful because you love Poe too. It’s taken you a while to see, blinded by Charlie and all the pain he brought you but now you know. You think you’ve known since the time in the canteen when he threw a bunch of blueberries at you for calling him flyboy. You think you’ve known for a long time.

Poe gives a nervous chuckle, “You got anything to add, sweetheart?”  

The smile breaks across your face like the fucking sun and you pull him closer, kissing him again and again and again. “I love you too.”

“Thank God, could you imagine if you’d say something else, so—“ you cut him off with a kiss, laughing against his lips as he runs a thumb over your cheek. “You’re so beautiful.” He murmurs against your skin.

“You’re so cliché.” You reply but you’re laughing like you haven’t in months. “What are we gonna do?” You sigh, tugging on the ends of Poe’s curls as he swats your hand playfully. “I’ve gotta tell Charlie.”

“You don’t owe him anything.” Poe mumbles as he kisses your neck. “Fuck him.”

“Well—“

“Not literally.” Poe scoffs but his eyes are bright again, just like yours. “C’mon, we’ve gotta go.”

You haven’t even noticed that the base is coming back into view until the ship dips back below the vines and Poe lands the ship smoothly back in the hangar. You feel like your limbs are seizing up as Poe offers you his hand again and leads you from the cockpit. He’ll be waiting because you’ve been out on patrol too long and god forbid something happens to you that’s out of his control. Fear blooms through your chest and your heart hammers and you’re wondering how you got yourself here and why you couldn’t just stick it out for a little longer.

“What’s going on?” Poe murmurs as you turn the corner

“I can just tough it out.” you blurt, catching Poe’s wrist to stop him in his tracks. “I can tough it out, we both know that. There’s no reason to start anything. I don’t...I don’t need you to do this.”

“Sweetheart,” Poe sighs, “look what he’s done to you. You don’t need to stay with him, you don’t need to lie down and take this anymore.” He runs a hand through his hair as you wish for the ground to swallow you up. “But you’re not in this alone anymore. Everyone’s going to be on your side, I promise you that.”

It takes another minute of Poe convincing you for you to finally force one foot in front of the other, but when you do you feel as if nothing will stop your again. Poe’s right, he’s brainwashed you to make you think that being in this stupidly abusive relationship is okay. But he’s wrong, Charlie is so fucking wrong if he believes he can break you. You know who you are, now more than ever, you’ve ignited that fire that’s been desperate to burn for so long and your back, ripping through the restraints Charlie forced you into.

“I’m ready.” You nod, taking a breath because you’re not ready but it’s now or never. Poe nods, takes your hand and leads you down the hallway back to the quarters. As expected, Charlie stands in the hallway with his arms crossed and a bored, irritated expression that  sits easily on his face. You feel Poe’s thumb tracing small circles across your skin and notice as Charlie’s eyes lock on your hands. You learn over to Poe, a small smile lifting your lips. “Let’s not cause a scene.” You whisper.

Poe gives a mocking nod of his head. “No, let’s.” But you know he won’t. He’ll step back and he’ll let you say what you need to. He won’t take this moment away from you, not when he knows what it means.

“Back late, aren’t you?” You almost bail right there and then because Charlie’s eyes hold the murderous glare you’re so familiar with and he hasn’t stopped looking at your fingers, so delicately intertwined with Poe’s. You take a sharp breath, feel Poe’s grip tighten ever so slightly and take a step forward, eyes level with Charlie’s. He raises an eyebrow in amusement, like he can’t believe you’re going to say a word to him.

“We’re done.” It’s not exactly the way you pictured the delivery but the look of shock on Charlie’s face is as good as any and victory bubbles in the pit of your stomach. You take another step forward, breaking away from Poe’s hand and stepping up to Charlie. “This,” you motion between the two of you. “This is over.”

Charlie scoffs, “What makes you think you can do that?”

“What makes you think I can’t?” And, god, it feels so fucking god to stand up to him, to show him the warrior that you’ve been all along. “What makes you think I give a shit about you at all?” You’re words are ripping through the air now, deadly, stalking towards Charlie before they tear him to shreds. His jaw is slack, mouth open like he can’t believe what he’s hearing but you keep going. You can’t stop yourself because you deserve this and you’ll be damned if you let him walk away before you tear him apart. “You broke me.” You hiss, “you wanted me, you took me and then you fucking broke me. I haven’t been happy in two years,  do you know that? Fuck, I haven’t been myself in two years.”

You chance it, take another step forward and draw yourself up to full height so that you’re looking straight into his eyes. “W-wait.” God it feels good to hear him stammer, for him to be unsure in his own skin just like you’ve been for months and months.

“You don’t get to talk now.” Your voice cracks but it doesn’t matter, it won’t affect you. “You don’t get to say anything to me ever again. You understand that?”

“I—“

“Do you understand that?” Every single word that leaves your mouth is coated with malice.

Charlie nods once and his voice is so small. “Yes.”

“Get the fuck out of my sight.”

You watch him turn tail and hurry down the hall until he’s out of sight and you can finally breath again. Your stuck there for a little bit, just staring at the spot where Charlie had been standing and not fully believing a word that’s just come out of your mouth.

“Sweetheart,” Poe breaks you out of your daze and you stumble back into his arms, letting him whisper in your ear, and run his fingers through your hair. “You did it.” He murmurs. “Sweetheart, you fucking did it.”

And again, it’s your name on his lips that pulls you back and you lift your head from Poe’s chest, grinning when he kisses you. Because it’ll always be Poe that brings you back and reminds you who you are. It’ll always be Poe.

Every single time.

[mrpenguinpants]

hellooo this is not a request but what do u think of the new upcoming character (he'll probably get release like... at least after 2 years ig TAT) Dainsleif?

Major spoilers for Kaeya’s Character Story and Khaenri'ah Lore. 

TLDR: I like the potential Dainsleif has plus his design is really nice. He might be a catalyst or sword user with empowered auto's or he might be similar to Zhongli that uses field effects and has a delete button for his elemental burst. 

I have many theories on who Dainsleif is and that he is either some type of traveler/god/homunculus and he has the element of ash or quintessence. The opposite of dendro and nature. I'd like to believe that the lore of Khaenri'ah relates to his story and his attitude (since he's from there originally) and it's a desolate place with no archon blessings so the people themselves had to develop their own methods to survive, hence the art of alchemy Khemia. When Dainsleif get's introduced, mostly likely towards the very end, we might find out why Scaramouche said the sky and the stars was a gigantic hoax and the truth behind Kaeya. 

---

ANON. YOU. YOU GET A COOKIE. I LOVE TALKING ABOUT STORY AND CHARACTER LORE SO MUCH.

Please, if any of you wanna talk about this I’m totally on board. I love Dainsleif and I’m so upset he’ll probably be released towards end game so yeah two years at least;; 

Okay, so level with me. I’m about to bring out the whiteboard for this. I tried to format it so it was easier to digest but this is pure word vomit and I went overboard again. 

What do u think of the new upcoming character Dainsleif?

I’m very excited. I think his design is beautiful and I want those lore bomb drops. 

Firstly, I can’t wait for him to drop. I’m always a sucker for lore and he’s been dropping hints from the start since he narrates all the character’s collected miscellany. He does remind of me Dimitri from FE3H but I’m excited for more Khaenri’ah lore. 

I have some theories about where the story will go with him and  Khaenri’ah but those are some major spoilers so I left a read more tag if you’re interested. 

Tumblr won’t let me upload his splash art but just google it lol.

Which weapon will he use? 

Catalyst or Sword. He might have empowered autos like Diluc and Razor or he might apply a mark like Childe. 

I can see him being a castor since his right arm is glowing. But he might also be a sword user that uses empowered auto’s like Diluc and Razor. Since the name Dainsleif was King Högni's sword during the battle of Hjaðningavíg. According to the reliable source of wiki, whatever wound the Dainsleif sword cause could not be healed. 

I think it would be cool if his auto’s apply a stack/mark (similar to Childe’s riptide mark), and after 3 auto’s the mark is consumed and the enemy gets dealt heavy damage. Or maybe you can apply debuffs like “defense down” or maybe even a blind, based on the number to stacks you have on the mark. 

What vision will he have?

A hydro vision or a custom one (similar to a delusion). Or he doesn’t have a vision at all and uses alchemy or is secretly a “god”.

As for vision, he might be a hydro character since his splash art appears like he’s coming out of a ball of water. I’ve heard people say he might be cyro also, which wouldn’t be extremely off if visions actually correspond with their user. 

Or he might be introduced with an entirely new element (perhaps a new type of alchemy?). His star is a dark blue too so he might have the element of black mist/dust or ash/shadows as a potential power. 

In the Albedo trailer he mentions:

"But I know it well. It hails from Khaenri'ah: The Art of Khemia. Soil and chalk, the universe and earth, pure dust and the birth of life.”

Perhaps this is the vision/power that Dainsleif has? Maybe even the creator or maybe he even taught Albedo’s Master how to do Khemia. I don’t think he really encompasses the Geo vision (I will seriously write an 11 page essay on how vision’s correspond with their holder). We don’t know a lot about Dendro but I think he might be related to it. But just like Khaenri’ah, he’s reflects the opposite. Instead of “birth of life” and tree’s, he’s the “death of life” and ash. (wow doesn’t that sound deep lolol sorry I don’t really know how to explain it). The way he talks in trailers, he says “mortals” a lot but does vouch for them so it makes me wonder if he might actually be a god. 

Also his title is the “Bough Keeper”. A bough means: a main branch of a tree. This makes me believe that he can either do something similar to what Albedo showed us and can create life or he does the opposite and creates ash. Honestly, a part of me believes he might just have generic moveset’s like everyone else but let me dream lol. 

Or he might not even be a vision holder since we don’t see him holding one, but we only have this angle and art to go off on. He might even use stars haha. If anyone remembers, during the falling star event, Scaramouche says the sky and stars were a gigantic hoax. I would not be surprised if the world is actually upside down or the “sky” isn’t even a sky at all. More like a sheet over Teyvat or some kind of illusion. 

Or another theory, perhaps Dainsleif is the god of time since he says in Travail during the Traveler chapter:

“Defeat me, command me to step aside, show me that you are worthier than I to rescue her. Then, the threads of all fate will be yours to re-weave“

It would explain how he knows so much about the other characters and what happened in the past since he brings up “the war” a lot. I’m assuming it’s either the Archon War or something before that. 

Or mihoyo could shred my thesis paper and Dainsleif has nothing to do with this and he’s some random guy from Khaenri’ah with plot convivence. 

---

I just want to mention at the bottom of this, but the classical elements are water, earth, fire, air and (later) aether. I find it funny that the male MC shares the name. 

“Aether, also called quintessence, is the fifth and highest classical element. It’s a material that fills the region of the universe above the terrestrial sphere.” 

“It permeates all nature and is the substance composing the celestial bodies. The essence of a thing in its purest and most concentrated form,”

Or this is just a hint to the traveler’s power since the traveler is the only one that can use all the elements. 

Possible moveset?

He might use stars or air/anemo in his moveset. He could be a very good dps with a lot of trapping potential. Or he might be a field effect support like Albedo, but can still do a lot of damage. 

Imagine Dainsleif uses stars haha, throwing them to do damage like Ningguang’s rocks. The splash art of him shows two stars in the top left. He might have a teleport (similar to Keqing + Mona dash), or maybe he could even have some sort of telekinesis with his right arm. I’m just getting Xayah from league of legends vibes where he can throw the star, it places itself at max range, then he can recall them and the star does damage on the way back. Similar to how Keqing’s elemental skill works but instead of teleporting to the stiletto, the stiletto comes back to you when you press e again. (Sorry I play on keyboard). 

The opposite of nature is void or cosmos so that could be relating to his power as well since the only animation we get of him is in Teyvat Chapter Storyline Preview: Travail (I’m just gonna say Travail) and this black mist comes from his hand and he says: 

“"We will defy this world with a power from beyond.”

Could be interesting hehe. He might even be a field effect character like Albedo. He doesn’t really strike me as the guy that likes fighting but in the Albedo trailer he says: 

“I am content to watch most crises play out from the sidelines. But if Albedo were ever to make a single wrong move...I could not let myself ignore it.”.

Seems to be that Dainsleif is pretty powerful or at least has some type of influence. It could be interesting if he’s similar to Zhongli and has a giant delete button for his elemental burst haha. Or he has some type of imprisonment power like Mona’s burst. Or as I mentioned earlier, it would be fun having telekinesis but this is just me taking liberties haha. 

(and yes I totally understand that I’m forcing the story to support my theory BUT IGNORE IT OK.)

Black Mist/Dust and Ash/Shadows?

Uh I gave up on these summaries lol 

I touched on it briefly but I say black mist or shadows since I believe that Khaenri’ah is probably not a good place to live originally. Similar to how Mondstadt was in the past, it is probably surrounded by some type of barrier (hence the mist or even the sky) that both traps and makes sure no one get’s in or out. Khaenri’ah is quite the opposite of most regions besides the whole “no archon” business but in “Travai”, when Dainsleif brings up Khaenri’ah this shows up:

It seems like a star to me in some hidden pocket in the sky and what not. This is what I would assume Scaramouche saw (possibly, we have no idea) and therefore there are people and an entire region that’s in the sky. But why would  Khaenri’ah be above Celestia? Since you can see Celestia in Teyvat. I would like to think that Teyvat is either upside down and Khaenri’ah is actually below everything or this pocket in the sky isn’t even in Teyvat and is similar to how you reach spiral abyss. You have to go through this circle in Cape Oath and you get sucked into this worm hole thing and you make it to Musk Reef. Where we saw Scarachmouche and he tells us the sky is a hoax. 

This idea kinda supports my idea that Teyvat is either upside down or the sky isn’t real since how could Dainsleif know who all these people are (since he narrates all the 5 star character’s trailers). Either the man is just really smart and travel’s around a lot but he’s aware of who Zhongli is, an archon from 6000 years ago. This makes me believe he is either a god himself or if he is also a homunculus. Or he’s in the third category and perhaps he’s also a traveler like the main character’s.

I don’t believe he’s an archon but it would be interesting if he was a potential candidate for becoming the Khaenri’ah archon. Since I believe vision holders (human) can become archons and rise to Celestia but Dainsleif refused or he was capable of becoming an Archon

“A human with a Vision is an allogene — one with the potential to reach godhood; however, it isn't clear if having a Vision is a requirement, or simply makes a person more likely to meet the qualifications to reach Celestia.”

But going back to the state of Khaenri’ah, I’d like to think that since the art of Khemia is from Khaenri’ah that would mean that they had to learn how to make their own food and life since they didn’t have an archon to bless their lands. Barbatos had swept the snow and land away in the region of Mondstadt but Khaenri’ah doesn’t have that luxury. Naturally, I would imagine that there are some downsides of Khemia when it was first being practiced, hence the ash. But ash isn’t a bad thing, in fact you can use ash to amend soil and boost your lawn. 

But obviously having a vision would be a whole lot more useful since it’s literally god given talent/blessing so if you have a vision, you might be able to break out and go to the “above” world of Teyvat. If you have a vision you’re seen as being blessed by the gods and you might be able to ascend to Celestia itself. I believe that Khaenri’ah is secretly the abyss and doesn’t see the sun so it’s always dark and it’s hard to grow anything so the people of Khaenri’ah had to find ways to make their own food, hence alchemy. This could be why Dainsleif is so adamant about humanity and questioning the Archons and visions. 

If we are going on the theory that Dainsleif is actually a normal human, then I’d like to imagine he was one of the people that prayed for a vision or some type of blessing and finally got it. But an incident happened and he lost his faith or resolve in the Archons. He mentions it a tiny bit in the Diluc trailer but this is just me spit balling. 

Also, Kaeya’s talents also mention about an abyss and void before the change. I don’t think abyss was made to relate to the abyss order and more the actual definition of abyss but it’s still interesting. 

What is Khemia?

Well I don’t know and I don’t know how accurate google is but let’s try and go through it together. I have no idea if what I’m about to type is offensive since I do not have a history degree and I’m pretty much paraphrasing what google tells me.

---

So Khemia, is an Egyptian sacred science. When Egypt was occupied by the Arabs they added “al-” to the world “Khemia” and “al-Khemia”. Al-Khemia means “The Black Land” and is now seen as a possibly origin of the world alchemy. 

Not gonna lie, I did not know al-khemia meant the black land so idk if my hindsight is 2020 or it was just super obvious for my monkey brain. 

As for the world “Chemeia”, it was used to designate the art of metal-working, specifically changing base metals into gold and silver. The Arabs later prefixed it with “al” and the world “alchemy”. Alchemy came to signify the art of chemistry in general. However the word "Chemeia” was probably derived from the Greek word “chemi” which means “black”. This could be because: 

In the sense of "dark" or "hidden", since the Dark, Hidden or Divine Art was the only name by which this science was known to the ancients.

However, the word chemistry might have had a Chinese origin.  It may have been derived from the Hakka term KIM-MI or the Cantonese term KEM-MAI, which signifies "gone astray in search of gold" or "secret of gold". 

Assuming it’s from Egyptian origin, the ancient Egyptian word khēmia means the transmutation of earth, thereby the science of matter at the atomic to molecular scale. According to some etymologists, khēmia or “preparation of black powder” ultimately derived the name from Khem or Kēme, Egypt, the land of black earth. 

---

So if we are going with the Chinese origin, I’d like to think that this is a hint towards the story and people trying to find the “gold” or perhaps a vision. This could explain why Kaeya was sent to Mondstadt to hopefully require a vision and come back. 

What is the lore behind Khaenri’ah then?

So, why do I think the people of Khaenri’ah are looking to be saved or want a vision so badly? Well, time to go through the entire Khaenri’ah lore with you lads. 

The Khaenri’ah lore goes as this:

At least 200 years ago, the Eclipse Dynasty threw the kingdom into chaos (meaning it was the last Dynasty).

The people were cursed and transformed into monsters.

Mondstadt’s Knights and Grand Master Arundolyn went on an expedition to Khaenri’ah to fight off the monsters.

In the present,  Khaenri’ah is still struggling against the effects of the curse. Kaeya was sent to Mondstadt as their last hope and for the sake of the “ancient plot”.

1. For those not aware, China’s time periods were separated into Dynasty’s (sort of). The Chinese characters of “Eclipse Dynasty” are [古国黑日落] or "The Ancient Civilization of the Black Sunset". There is probably some type of history or connection to this since Zhongli’s voicelines are full of them but this post is long enough and I don’t know if people want to or care about hearing Chinese history but um let me know? Cause I’m really into that and I will gladly write about it.

2. We’re not completely aware if the people transformed into Hilichurls or were apart of the Abyss Order. But since the last dynasty was literally called Eclipse I would like to believe this supports my idea that Khaenri’ah isn’t someplace you can easily reach and you have to entire a fucking worm hole to get to. I’m in love with the idea that Khaenri’ah is the spiral abyss or at least part of it, that Childe fell into when he was a younger. Perhaps even the spiral abyss is where he landed since time technically doesn’t pass in spiral and it’s just a wave of enemies. I would 100% not be shocked if we have to enter the that wormhole to get to Khaenri’ah or something similar. 

3. Arundolyn was a previous Grand Master and while he did not possess a Vision, he was naturally gifted through intense training. He was formerly one of the Four Winds and had the title of “Lion of Light”. So Khaenri’ah is possible to get to and someone from Mondstadt has done it, but without a vision. The Traveler also doesn’t carry a vision so it might be interesting to see. Kaeya didn’t get his vision until he was 18? 17? When he had a falling out with Diluc. 

I would like to think that perhaps the Archon’s betrayed Khaenri’ah or someone fucked up in their pursuit to develop Khemia to it’s fullest potential or wanted to make their own vision, hence the delusion and how it transforms Childe into a foul legacy form. The Dragonspine lore could point to how Celestia has the power to seal away Khaenri’ah. This also might have been where Dainsleif lost his resolve (assuming he’s a human and just happened to get some sort of power or is really good at Khemia he saw the past or fate or whatever lol)

“Murals, Record of Serial No., and other lore bits in Dragonspine indicate that those who dwelled there attempted to fight against Celestia but lost. As punishment, the Skyfrost Nail was dropped, and the area was turned into a frozen wasteland.

Therefore, people with visions cannot enter Khaenri’ah because of the Archon’s and people that receive visions (which I still think is highly unlikely if you’re in Khaenri’ah) might be able to break out. Think of spiral abyss as some sort of “purgatory” except to enter Khaenri’ah you go down. To get out, you start AT FLOOR 12 and make your way up. Similar to Kid Icarus and how the hardest level was at the beginning and as you went up, it slowly became easier. 

4. I like the idea that Khaenri’ah is a land that either doesn’t have vision holders or the people that do have visions aren’t seen the same way as other regions. People are are actually cursed by the Gods or people that require visions leave Khaenri’ah because they now have the power to. In Travail Dainsleif says this:

"Some say a few are chosen and the rest are dregs, but I say we humans have our humanity. We will defy this world from a power from beyond”

Naturally these are his ideals and I’d like to believe that Khaenri’ah is actually split on this. Some believe in Dainsleif ideals while the other half doesn’t. If we’re going on the theory that Khaenri’ah is actually the abyss then the abyss order makes a bit more sense. 

Plus the idea that Lumine/Aether (I think the story is just going to stick with Lumine being the “villain ”) working for the abyss, it could be because their twin was separated by an unknown god. Aether was asleep and plagued by nightmares with his sister saying “it was too late”, perhaps he lost his memory since he doesn’t know what he was late for? Maybe this is what she meant since I’d assume the story has you going from place to place and the Archon’s stepping down like in Liyue and the Tsaritsa collecting all the gnosis. 

Why is the Tsaritsa collecting all the gnosis?

“She is a god with no love left for her people, nor do they have any left for her. Her followers only hope to be on her side when the day of her rebellion against the divine comes at last."

I can imagine that Tsarista or the Cyro archon is collecting all the gnosis because she believes in the Khaenri’ah attitude and is apart of the ancient plot or is trying to protect them somehow since she isn’t an evil person based on Childe’s voicelines:

“Her Royal Highness the Tsaritsa is actually a gentle soul. Too gentle, in fact, and that's why she had to harden herself. Likewise, she declared war against the whole world only because she dreams of peace. And because she made an enemy of the world, I had the chance to become acquainted with you.”

Or maybe even more interesting, she was actually a citizen of Khaenri’ah since the Tsaritsa wasn’t apart of the original seven but this is a huge stretch. Maybe she’s collecting all the gnosis to finally break the seal on Khaenri’ah? Plus the people of Sneznaya strike me as “I don’t care if you’re blessed by the gods or have a vision, if you can fight then you’re good in our books”. Plus the people of Khaenri’ah are probably pretty mad at the Archons so when the rebellion does come I’d assume the Tsaritsa wants them on her side. 

What happened to Kaeya?

Now Kaeya’s character story goes into how he met Diluc and Crepus. It’s hinted that it was on purpose since Kaeya’s father left him there specifically. 

"One afternoon near the end of summer a decade ago, my father and I passed by the Dawn Winery."

This matter-of-fact description hides a carefully constructed lie. Kaeya has never once spoken the truth about what happened that afternoon:

"This is your chance. You are our last hope."

Kaeya would never forget the look of both hope and hatred in his father's eyes as he uttered those words.

Now you can interpret this as many things, either collecting all the gnosis and obtaining a vision to hopefully come back to save Khaenri’ah could be what he meant or he want’s Kaeya to stop the Abyss Order from literally setting Teyvat on fire. You can probably sympathize with the Abyss Order if we are following the theory that they are actually the mutated monsters of Khaenri’ah citizen’s during the Eclipse dynasty but it’s also like, how about we not set the world on fire ya know?

But interestingly, the reason why Kaeya’s father left him with Diluc’s family is because they have a long history of participating in the rebellion against Decarabian 2,600 years ago and Vennessa’s rebellion against the Aristocracy. 

What will happen when Dainsleif get’s introduced?

So, I’m fully on board with the “Kaeya being the secret prince of Khaenri’ah” theory. I like the idea that Dainsleif is Kaeya’s servant or trusted advisor but I think that’s mainly rooted in the ship. Dainsleif strikes me more as someone who observes and only steps in if he has to because it might affect fate or whatever.

“I am content to watch most crises play out from the sidelines. But if Albedo were ever to make a single wrong move...I could not let myself ignore it.” 

I don’t think Dainsleif is the King of Khaenri’ah that Jean mentions in her hobbies voiceline but perhaps he was related to them somehow. Maybe the first King or the King that Jean mentions was real and Dainsleif was his friend or the God that helped him become King, then the Eclipse Dynasty happened and everything went downhill. Since I believe in Kaeya being a secret prince from  Khaenri’ah, Dainsleif would still be somewhat loyal to the Kingdom or perhaps he had lost faith after what happened and how so many people got corrupted and turned into monsters. 

I was talking about this with my friend but what if genshin pulls an fgo and “kills” Kaeya? Similar to FGO where Leonardo “died” in a car accident and when we visited a shop, there was just a hologram. What if genshin’s story kills Kaeya in a cutscene, and we can no longer use him since Kaeya was a free character, only to return as - THE 5 STAR WE WERE ALL WAITING FOR - the prince of Khaenri’ah.

When will we see Dainsleif?

According to the “Travail” the order of appearances is this: 

I believe part 1 is finished with Zhongli and dragonspine was just an add on for Albedo. But this makes me believe that Dainsleif and Khaenri’ah will be after we go to Snezhnaya. Also side note, the music for Natlan slaps hard. 

---

But yeah, I kinda went a bit off track and started talking about the story haha. I really love lore so if anyone has any questions about other characters or want’s to discuss the genshin story I am all ears^^. Also, if any of this becomes true in two years time I WILL BE BACK TO SAY I TOLD YOU SO. 

Or genshin prepares to rip this post apart and none of it is true. If you actually read my word vomit I appreciate you and you get a free cookie. If you’re wondering where I’ve been, it was writing this haha. 

[holylulusworld]

Dominance Hierarchy

Summary: Meeting Sam Winchester didn’t mean anything to you. He’s a tall Alpha, a hunter so you decide to leave the moment the case was done but Sam has other plans.

Pairing: Alpha!Sam x Omega!Reader, Alpha!Dean (barely), Jo Harvelle, OFC’S 

Warnings: angst, possessive/angry/jealous Alpha!Sam, abo dynamics, dominant Sam, smut, unprotected sex, manhandling, language, hair pulling, knotting, mating, claiming, breeding kink, public sex, oral (female receiving), fingering, orgasm denial

6000 Followers BINGO CARD kink: Breeding Kink

6000 Followers Celebration Masterlist

“You just left him at the bar?” Chuckling Jo slaps your thigh not believing you just left Sam fucking Winchester while he tried to seduce you.

“I told you I’m not looking for a mate, a possessive Alpha and a hunter on top of all, Jo. He acted as if he owns me. I swear he was close to grabbing my hair and drag me into his cave. I don’t say he isn’t attractive but I’m too independent to let an Alpha rule my life.” Sipping at your drink you roll your eyes as an Alpha strides toward you. 

Chest puffed, licking his lips he tries to impress you with his size but he’s a dwarf in contrast to Sam. Shaking the thought away you try to continue your conversation with Jo but the Alpha sits next to you, starting to hit on you.

“Dude, I try to talk to my friend. Get lost.” Voice hard you turn your back toward the Alpha, rejecting him as the door to the bar opens and your breath hitches in your throat.

Sam is entering the bar, tall enough to fill the door frame, chest puffed he searches the bar till his eyes land on you and the Alpha behind you touching your shoulder.

You can see the tall Alpha’s posture change as he walks toward you to shove the Alpha away, snarling into the way smaller man’s direction. “Mine…” Laying his claim at you Sam grabs your waist, squeezing your flesh tightly.

Glancing up at the angry Alpha you gulp hard seeing his darkened eyes and the possessiveness in these hazel orbs. “You left…” A low purr leaves his lips as you cover his hands with yours.

“Didn’t know I have to ask for permission to drive home, Winchester.” You try to sound confident, but the way Sam looks at you, full Alpha, makes you melt into a puddle.

“You’re mine, can’t let you leave me like that.” The tall Alpha tilts his head to bury his nose into your neck, inhaling your scent deeply he purrs against your throat and your body reacts to his closeness.

“I’m not yours, dude. Sam, you’re not a caveman. Control your needs and find an Omega to use as your rut bunny.” Trying to reason with the dominant Alpha you feel his teeth graze your skin and a gasp leaves your lips.

“I don’t want a rut bunny. I want you…Y/N.” 

“Go home, Winchester. I want to have a nice night with my friend.” Now Sam tightens the grip on you. His hazel eyes search your face as he sees your breathing quicken. 

“Is there another Alpha? Did you let someone else touch what’s mine?” Sam is stepping between your legs, bending your body to nip at your neck.

“For fuck’s sake, Sam…” Panting your try to get rid of Sam but he moves his hands up and down your body, leaving goosebumps on his way.

“You’re mine. I’m the Alpha of my pack, your Alpha.” Now he grabs your waist to toss you over his shoulder, ignoring your protests. “I’ll show you who’s in charge, Omega.” Angrily clenching his jaw Sam carries you out of the bar, not caring about the insults you throw at him or your try to wiggle out of his grip.

“Sam, let me down…damnit…”

“I told you that you are mine…”

“No…I’d like to be with the Alpha you scared off.” Stopping in his tracks Sam places you onto the hood of his car, towering intimidating over you. 

“You’re mine! No one touches you but me. I’ll kill him right now.” Ready to attack the innocent Alpha Sam wants to walk back into the bar but you grab his biceps.

“Sam, no! Please…” His eyes meet yours and you tilt your head, submitting to the tall Alpha. “I was just joking, okay. I don’t even know that guy.”

“Not funny at all.” Sam is tilting his head, just looking at you. You feel his gaze on you and your body starts trembling as his rough hands stroke your cheeks. Leaning into his touch you purr and Sam smiles before he growls low in his throat.

“Alpha?”

“That guy is not smart.” The Alpha from before storms toward Sam a broken bottle in his hands he tries to attack Sam but the tall Alpha is faster, disarming the man in a split-second he grabs his arm, bending it till he feels the bones break.

“Sam!” Gasping you try to drag Sam off the man but he tried to touch you and now he disturbed Sam’s claim so the Alpha will kill the smaller man out of instinct. “Please…I’m yours…”

Dropping the smaller Alpha Sam strides toward you to pick you up. He’s slamming you against the car, claiming your lips roughly. “Say it again.”

“I’m yours, Alpha…” Appreciating your words Sam purrs, licking into your mouth and you feel your head spinning as the Alpha moves his hand between your legs.

Fingertips crazing your clit he chuckles against your lips when your hips jerk at the spark he ignites.

“Mine, only mine. Gonna bring you home and take you hard. I will not let you out of my room till you are round with my pups. Swollen and beautiful.” Growling low in his throat Sam nips at your neck as you grind against his thick fingers.

“Sam…not here…” Desperate to get more friction, more of the dominant Alpha you fist his shirt, earning yourself a snarl and a pinch to your clit. “Please…Alpha.”

“Such a good girl now. But there still will be punishment.” Sam’s eyes darken and a dirty grin appears on his kiss swollen lips. “Need to show you who is in charge, Omega.” Fisting his shirt tighter you look up at the tall Alpha, licking your lips.

“I’m not a little girl you can push around, Sam. You want to fill me with pups? Earn it.” Challenging an angry Alpha is not a good idea, but you can’t help yourself. He’s like a wild beast and you love it.

Gripping your thighs, he pushes you onto the car, growling against you as your panties get ripped off your body and his face buries between your thighs.

“You will submit to me, Y/N. Gonna punish you till you beg me to stop…” 

Squealing you feel his lips seal around your clit, suckling hard and you fall back onto the hood of his car, fisting the Alpha’s hair. Two thick fingers slide inside your cunt, roughly pumping into you.

Toes curling, breathing quickening you look at Sam as he purrs against your folds, sliding his tongue up and down your sex. Close, so close to a high you purr his name, but he stops right before you can reach the peak.

“No…Sam…I was so close…please…” Wiggling you try to get any kind of friction, but Sam holds you in a tight grip, only breathing against your heated flesh. “Alpha, please…” Whimpering you rut against his stilling fingers, hoping he will make you come.

“Punishment. I’ll make you feel good when you be a good girl and submit.” Now you narrow your eyes as you slam your hands onto the hood. 

“Fuck you, Sam. Get off me and never touch me again, asshole. I’m not someone to play with. You want a little doll to push around? Fine, look for someone else.” Sitting up you push against his broad shoulders. 

Your outburst hits Sam by surprise and he retreats, staring at your exposed sex with darkened eyes. “You’re mine…I want…” Confused Sam paces around the car, not knowing how to react to a feisty Omega.

“Yeah, maybe I’m your true mate but that doesn’t mean you can treat me like I’m a stupid little girl without a brain or will. Do you want me? Earn it!” Jumping off his car you brush past Sam, muttering under your breath.

“I…” Angrily clenching his jaw, hands balled into fists Sam runs after you, grabbing your arm to drag you behind the bar. “I’ll treat you like you deserve it.” Purring Sam presses your body against the rough wall, careful to not bruise your face. “Gonna make you mine right here like the dirty and feisty girl you are.”

He’s pressing his hard body against your back, not playing with you he opens his pants and your breathing quickens once again feeling his large cock prod at your entrance.

“Sam Winchester, you can’t fuck me right here…” Whining you press your hands against the wall when Sam starts to sink his aching cock into your heat. Snarling he moves his hands up and down your thighs as his nose slides along your pulse point.

Leaving open-mouthed kisses along your neck Sam moans when he’s finally fully sheathed inside of you. “You’re so tight for me, Omega. Such a good girl.”

“You’re fucking big down there too, Winchester…Fuck. How do you manage to hide your package?” Panting you hear Sam laughing behind you as his hands wander to your breasts playing with your nipples.

“I want you to be mine, Y/N. Never had a feisty Omega…Sorry…” The last word makes you purr.

The tall and self-confident Alpha apologized and you don’t know if you want to give him a snarky comment or accept it. “Still, I want to breed you, make you round.”

Full Alpha again Sam starts moving and you need to bite your tongue to muffle the cries leaving your lips. He’s pounding you at a maddening pace, making sure you won’t be able to walk for a few days.

His girth almost too much to handle, long enough to hit your cervix Sam pumps into you as if he did this a thousand times with you. The Alpha rules your body plays you like an instrument as he hits your g-spot with every long stroke.

“Sam…”

“Say it…”

“Fuck, I’m not…oh…” Another hard thrust and you dig your nails into the wall, arching your back. “Shit…” One skilled finger flicks your clit as his cock starts to swell.

Balls tightening, length twitching Sam moans into your neck, whispering your name and you cry out his presentation, along with what he wants to hear. “I’m yours, for fuck’s sake, Sam…fuck me harder…”

Fisting your hair Sam slams into you, burying his dick as deep as possible with every thrust and you come undone. Hard. Loud. Violently. Tilting your head you submit to Sam, letting him sink his teeth into your neck the moment he bucks into you, filling your womb with his cum.

Licking the small wound Sam praises your name, along with Omega as his knot swells and you need his strong arms to keep you upright. “I’ve got you, Baby. Shh…it will fade soon and then we will drive to your home and get your things.”

“Shit, you are one annoying bastard, Winchester but fuck it you are a catch.” Chuckling you let Sam hold you in his arms. 

“Hmm…you’re not that bad either, Omega. Gonna make sure you are round soon.” Patting Sam’s hands you fall against his hard chest, muttering under your breath.

“We will see, Romeo…”

“I mean it, Omega. I might have to change a bit but I’m your Alpha and will make you full with my pups sooner or later. I want you swollen and see the milk leaking out of your breasts.” Sam is imagining you with his child inside of your belly and you whimper as he nips at your neck, stroking your flat belly.

“Fine, but can we not make a pup behind a bar…?” Laughing against your throat Sam nods and you slide your fingers through his hair. “If anyone asks, we mated in a cozy bed, not in a dirty alley behind a bar, Winchester.”

“All you want, Omega.” Rubbing your belly Sam purrs against your claiming mark as he carefully slips out of you.

—-

Around six months later…

“If our child ever asks when and where we made him you will not tell him ‘behind a bar’, Samuel Winchester.” Poking your finger into your Alphas chest you want to slap his cheek as he grins down at you, mischief in his eyes.

“Can’t change you are that fertile, Omega. Who thought I would knock you up the moment I shove my cock into you for the first time?” Shrugging Sam smirks before his large hands caress your swollen belly carefully.

Sam is a tall beast, wild and strong but with you, he’s gentle and careful, afraid he might hurt his child or you.

“Don’t go all cozy now, Winchester.” Pointing at Sam’s cock you smirk this time. “Last night you took me hard, like the animal my mate is.” Giggling you watch Dean scrunch up his nose before he almost runs out of the library.

“You enjoyed every second…” Sam kneels to kiss your belly, muttering against your skin. “My Omega is a feisty one, but still I’m in charge.”

“Yeah…” Patting Sam’s head your chuckle silently. “Just tell this to yourself, Alpha. Sooner or later we will outnumber you. Me and the pups will make sure you are wrapped around our pinkies.”

“Pups?” Panting Sam looks up at you. “The doctor said we are going to have twins, a boy, and a girl. She was hiding behind her brother, Alpha. We. Will. Outnumber. You.” Enouncing the last four words you start laughing at your Alpha’s pained expression. 

“No…” Whining Sam glances at your belly. 

“What? Is my tall and tough Alpha cured of his ‘breeding kink’ or does he want more?” Sam’s eyes darken and a snarl leaves his lips.

“Going to breed you again and make sure the pups and I outnumber you, Omega…Mine…” Smirking you nod, knowing the pups will make Sam run around the bunker.

“Let’s see if you can handle me and two pups…” Walking toward your bedroom you giggle as Sam mutters something about dominance and being the Alpha…

SPN Forever Tags

@donnaintx, @screechingartisancashbailiff, @fallen-wolf22, @sister-winchesters99, @mogaruke, @the-is13, @helloitsmeamie203, @strayrosesbloom, @thewinchesterco, @hobby27, @kittycatlover18, @gh0stgurl, @marvelfansworld , @sandlee44, @hawaiianohana31, @unlikelysamwinchesteronahunt, @katpatrova17, @notyourtypicalrose , @heyitscam99, @flamencodiva, @echoesofpassion, @cocklesbelli, @voltage-my2dlove, @fandom-princess-forevermore @thenamelesschibi, @lauravic, @fandomsrourlives, @wittysunflower, @drakelover78, @lemondropirwin, @lonewolf471, @wronglanemendes, @spnhollis, @void-imaginations, @jay-and-dean, @shatteredabby, @juniorhuntersam, @helpmeluci, @neii3n, @goodgodimaweirdperson, @alltimesamantha, @chonisberonica, @supernaturalonice @stuckys-whore, @shadowkat-83, @officialmarvelwhore, @wecantgiggleitsafandom, @meganywinchester, @shikshinkwon, @miraclesoflove, @yolobloggers, @lu-sullivan, @maniacproffesor, @hollymac79, @straycuties9, @kayla-2000, @ilovefanfic86, @gracefultrenchcoat494, @babygirls-fav​, @sadn0va, @spnwoman, @amiquette, @linki-locks11, @geekofmanyforms, @eggingamazinglove, @jessica-marsh09​, @spnficgirl​, @shut-themoonscone​, @thequeenreaders, @countrygal17a​, @kteelou​, @soryuwifeyxx​, @kricketc28​, @heartislubbingdubbing​, @atomicfandombomb​, @defenderrosetyler​ , @shortwinchester​, @maybesomedaygayyyy​, @tmiships4life​, @deanmonandnegansbitch​, @exo-nova​, @the-chocolate-moose​, @jamesmoriarty-biotches​, @laxe-from-outer-space​, @sabascio​, @that-place-called-middle-earth​, @the-broken-angel-13​, @bunnybaby89​, @pandabiiissh​ , @differentstudentrunaway-e70bf763​, @certaindeanwinchesterforcastiel​

Sam/Jared Forever Tags

@moosekateer13​, @thevelvetseries​

[lady-divine-writes]

“Excuses, Excuses” (Rated PG13)

Summary:

When Crowley takes Aziraphale figure skating, the angel thinks Crowley has an ulterior motive. And he does, but it's not the one Aziraphale thinks. (1688 words)

Notes: I was inspired by one of @wildenights prompts for the Gomens Holiday Swap to write this one-shot for them. Sorry that it's a little late.It’s fluff and romance and a first kiss. I hope you enjoy it. :)

Read on AO3.

“Darling?”

“Hmm?” Crowley mutters, barely glancing up from his task.

“Have I offended you?”

“No more than usual, angel.”

“Ha … ha …” Aziraphale frowns at Crowley’s kidding. At least, Aziraphale thinks he’s kidding. But now is hardly the time for it - not when Crowley is putting their lives (such as they can be deemed) in peril. “Have I done something to upset you in any way?”

“Not in the past few hours.”

Aziraphale swallows, his voice softening, fragile to the point of cracking. “Do you love me?”

Crowley’s face snaps up. He glares at Aziraphale, lips twisted. “Of course I do!”

“Then …” Aziraphale eyes the black leather boots with shiny (and lethal looking) silver blades attached that Crowley has finished tying to his feet “… why do you wish to see me discorporated?”

Crowley hauls himself off the floor and sits on the bench beside him, tying his own pair of skates. “Don’t be daft! I don’t want to see you discorporated!”

“Maimed then?”

Crowley huffs and rolls his eyes. “Stop being so dramatic, angel! We’re going ice skating!”

“But why go ice skating when there’s a lovely restaurant right over there where we can get coffee and scones?”

“We just had coffee and scones. At that restaurant!”

“I know. That’s how I know it’s lovely.”

“This is what humans do during the holidays. You appreciate cute human rituals,” Crowley points out with a sneer, indicating that he does not appreciate them nearly as much. “I thought you might enjoy yourself.”

“I also enjoy going about with my appendages unbroken.”

“Don’t worry …” Crowley ties a knot in his final lace and rises, rather skillfully, to his feet, making Aziraphale wonder if balancing on blades is a common talent amongst demons, or only for Crowley, which leads to him comically envisioning a frozen pond or lake covered in skating demons, spinning and jumping and performing feats of athletic grace while they spit fire and curse unsuspecting humans to eternity in Hell “… I’ll hold on tight to you so you won’t fall. But if you do manage to break something, I’ll miracle it back together. All right?”

Aziraphale hums in disapproval. He isn’t looking forward to any activity that might require he be reassembled by a demon. But Aziraphale has seen Crowley miracle dents out of his Bentley numerous times. Crowley can definitely do it.

“Yes, all right,” Aziraphale relents, reluctant to relinquish the belief that he must have done something heinous if Crowley chooses to torture him this way. Crowley is more of a wily demon than a malicious one, ergo he’d probably want to see Aziraphale fall on his arse, look like a fool, not get injured.

Crowley takes Aziraphale’s arm and leads him to the ice with such care, it confuses him. Perhaps Crowley plans on taking him to the center of the ice and stranding him there. He’d come back to the benches, miracle himself up a brandy, then sit and watch Aziraphale struggle to follow. And while Aziraphale racks his brain for a possible reason why, he overlooks the fact that they’ve started circling the rink arm in arm, slowly and smoothly. Aziraphale stares down at his legs, basically paralyzed, then to Crowley doing all of the work keeping Aziraphale upright and guiding him along. He gets so caught up watching their skates glide across the ice, trying to find a balanced spot, he doesn’t notice he’s doubled over, his nose nearly at the level of his navel.

“No need to stare at the ice, angel,” Crowley says. “It’s not going anywhere.”

“Oh. Right.” Aziraphale straightens, inch by inch becoming more comfortable in his current circumstances until he appears from the outside like he’s doing something close to skating.

“There …” Crowley smiles at Aziraphale’s flushed cheeks and cherry nose “… how’s that? Nice, huh?”

“I … I suppose,” Aziraphale admits. “I’d still rather be sitting somewhere safe. And warm.”

“Next time I’ll bring you a sled instead of skates so I can pull you around like a dog. How would that suit you?”

“If you’re offering …” Aziraphale’s left leg cramps from straining to remain immobile while his right gets ambitious and decides to push. He hits his toe pick and trips, flying forward so fast, stars swirl before his eyes. He tenses, assuming a crash eminent, but Crowley swoops in and braces him before he loses his feet. Aziraphale stares up at the demon holding him awkwardly in his arms. “Um … thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Crowley says, putting Aziraphale back on his blades. Without another word, they continue along. Aziraphale takes a deep breath in through his nose and holds it, wary of doing anything more strenuous that may throw him off balance. But with Crowley’s arm latched securely around him, he starts to relax, lets himself experience fully everything going on around him - the wind biting his cheeks and his nose, threading through his hair like fingers; the sound their blades make as they scrape along the ice; holiday music playing through an outdoor speaker from a shop close by; the savory smells coming from that restaurant Aziraphale is still carrying a torch for. Most of all, he’s enjoying Crowley’s arm around him, his strength keeping Aziraphale vertical, his warmth seeping through Aziraphale’s clothes to his skin.

Aziraphale feels giddy in Crowley’s arms. Brave somewhat. He raises a leg and balances on one skate. Crowley sees him and smiles, holding him steadier when that leg starts to wobble.

“See?” he says. “You’re gettin’ the hang of it.”

“Yes, well, this shouldn’t be too hard when you consider I can fly.” Aziraphale lets go of Crowley’s arm for a second and gives spinning a try, returning to the safety of Crowley’s embrace after his first shaky attempt.

“Very nice, angel. Very nice. Maybe you can compete in the next Olympics.”

“Been there, done that. You seem to be steadier on your feet than I am. I imagine you’ve done this before?”

Crowley shrugs. “Once or twice.”

“Why don’t you show me what you can do then?” Aziraphale asks, joyfully breathless and completely exhilarated. Why had he not attempted this before? How did he not realize how much fun this could be?

Well, the answer to that is quite simple.

Because a handsome demon had never offered to take him before. Now that he has, he must find an excuse for Crowley to bring him skating whenever they are able.

“Not this time. This time around my only job is to ensure your safety.”

“That’s awfully chivalrous of you.” Aziraphale releases Crowley’s hand to try his spin again. He performs it, but this time, the edge of his blade catches. His feet fly out from under him. He’s sure he’s going to land on his back this time, but out of nowhere, Crowley has his arms around him, holding him against his body for safe keeping.

And even after Aziraphale steadies himself, Crowley doesn’t let go.

“Are you all right, dear?” Aziraphale asks when this embrace has gone on a hair too long to be considered helping anymore. Crowley doesn’t say yes or no. He makes a noise in the affirmative and clings on tighter. Aziraphale does the same, holding Crowley around the torso and resting his cheek against his shoulder. He smiles when he feels them start to sway, as if they could be dancing, even though neither of them has moved an inch. They haven’t gone dancing before either. They’ve barely held hands. Maybe that was the next thing on Crowley’s agenda. This single embrace is the most physical contact they’ve shared in 6000 years of knowing one another.

And that gets Aziraphale thinking.

“Is this … is this why you wanted to go skating with me?”

“Mmm … maybe.”

Aziraphale pulls back to look at Crowley’s face, past the lenses of his dark glasses and into his beautiful amber eyes . “Dearest, if you wanted a hug, you could have just asked.”

“Ngk … yeah … I know. I guess I was just afraid you’d say no.”

“Why would I possibly say no? It is just a hug after all. Friends hug, and  I dare say, we’re more than friends.”

“True but …”

“And … you said you love me. Correct?”

“I do. But I … I got the feeling that … for you … hugging might be a big milestone and all … seeing as we’ve known each other 6000 years and we’ve never once … uh … I didn’t want to overstep … you know … because then we may never … well, we may never …”

Aziraphale gazes fondly at his ridiculous demon and sighs. He’s in no position to do anything grand. He’s still not quite steady on his feet. And regardless of his size, he feels a too strong breeze might push him over. So he rises up carefully on his toes, presses his lips to Crowley’s, and silences his bumbling demon with a kiss.

Crowley stops, stunned, mouth slightly open, lips cold but wet from constantly nervously running his tongue over them. But seconds later, he pulls Aziraphale back into his embrace, holding him with arms so secure and sure, they may as well be made of steel. It’s a simple kiss, but it nearly knocks the wind out of Crowley - a feat considering, as a demon, he doesn’t need to breathe.

“What … what was that for?” he asks when Aziraphale tentatively backs away.

“Didn’t you like it?” Aziraphale asks, the cold putting a twinkle in his eyes but that kiss making his face flush to the roots of his snowy blond hair.

“Yes, I liked it! But that’s not the issue! It took me how long to hug you!? Wouldn’t kissing be considered a much larger step?”

“Of course!” Aziraphale chuckles. “That’s why I figured, if I got it out of the way, it might help you not be nervous about hugging me anymore!”

Crowley grins. Then he laughs out loud, relaxing into the body he’s holding against his own. “I see your point.”

[thegoodomensdumpster]

Hello! I wanted to ask if maybe you have some opinions on the book fragment that always confuses me - when Satan is about to appear, Aziraphale and Crowley have this exchange: "What a day that was, and no mistake. Good old days." "Not really," said Crowley. The noise was growing. "People knew the difference between right and wrong in those days," said Aziraphale dreamily. "Well, yes. Think about it." "Ah. Yes. Too much messin' about?" "Yes." What do you think they’re referring to? (1/2)

I’ve always read that as Aziraphale feeling nostalgic about the “simpler“ times and Crowley remarking how he and Aziraphale had a hand in making being human harder by all their “messing about“. But isn’t Azraphale kinda referring to the original sin? Which would make Crowley seem like he’s rethinking if he did the bad thing after all? And why does Crowley say "Not really“ in the first place? Idk I just can’t make up my mind so I’d love to hear your opinion bc this fragment has me lost. (2/2)OK so I’m putting screencaps of that part of the book for more context:

( I couldn’t resist including the part where they get to hold hands even though it was technically not needed for this particular discussion.)

Hm. First of all, I think it’s worth mentionning that the whole scene on the airfield was… a bit confusing to me, especially when it came to understanding where everyone was and what they were doing and when. Maybe it’s a professionnal deformation from being a storyboard artist, but when I can’t visualize correctly how things go my brain kinda gets blocked and doesn’t treat informations well. So I was very eager to see how that scene was going to be done in the TV series because in retrospect it helped me make more sense of the scene in the book. But I’m still confused a bit.

So, with that in mind, this is a part of the book that left me with the same interrogations but I didn’t dwell too much on it.

I think the part before that actual bit quoted by the anon is interesting to take into account, because it’s the point where Crowley and Aziraphale take responsibility for all the effects they had on humanity by finally stepping up and protecting them. Before that, it was always the excuse “we’re just doing our jobs”. With them accepting to fight for humanity, on behalf of what they’ve done and on behalf of humanity, they claim that they actually belong to humanity and Earth more than they belong to Heaven, Hell, or any other arbitrary demarcation between mortals and immortals. (And one interesting thing is that Aziraphale compares his and Crowley’s actions to those of other people - humans - who were also just doing their jobs. There is no difference between demons, angels, and humans. )

They chose their side.

And once they have chosen their side, Aziraphale picks his weapon, the one he first gave to humanity (so it comes full circle, which is narratively and symbolicly pretty neat) and that’s when they talk about “what a day that was, good old days.” “Not really.” “Too much messin about?” “Yes.” I think … it wouldn’t surprise me if there was voluntarily enough vagueness in these sentences to be interpreted in different ways. 

What day is Aziraphale referring to? The day he gave his sword to Adam and Eve. The day they got kicked out of Eden. The day they might have eaten the apple and learned the difference between good and bad. The day his relationship with Crowley possibly started. The day he did one genuinely altruistic thing out of instinct, but also the day Crowley told him that maybe it was the bad thing to do. The day nothing could ever be entirely black or entirely white anymore. 

Could this be more about himself that Aziraphale is talking about, about him and Crowley, or about humanity in general? Ultimately, it doesn’t matter, because as I said earlier: they are all the same.

Is the nostalgia about before everything became grey, or before they knew what humanity was capable of, or before they started meddling … I don’t know. Maybe it’s not that clear in Aziraphale’s mind either. 

When Aziraphale says “good old days”, I can’t really say what exactly he’s referring to. But when Crowley replies “not really”, the way I see it, he is telling Aziraphale “things have always been this complicated, you just weren’t able to see it back then”. 

The following part puzzles me a little, because I think GO makes it exceedingly clear that, first temptation aside, humanity would have grown to be exactly the same without Crowley and Aziraphale’s influence. Maybe they punctually brought more good / evil around them, in limited areas every now and then, but their influence was very limited. And it keeps being pointed out that the best and the worst things, humans do entirely on their own, and often one single human can do both terrible and very good things. Humanity is only shades of grey.

It’s hard for me to conceptualize that because Adam and Eve were the first ones to be handled the knowledge of wrong and right (wtf are ethics anyway, they keep changing through time and space, that doesn’t mean anything to begin with) they necessarily saw what was the line between good and evil. Why should it be clear to them and not to their descendants? Why should humanity’s ethics degrade over time (I mean, there seems to be a point of reference that is more or less catholicism, so that is extraordinarily up to debate in itself) ??? It doesn’t make sense to me. Maybe that’s just my atheist ass preventing me from getting a religious understanding, but I give up on that particular bit of dialogue.

The only thing I can make out of it is, as I said, that this is about Crowley and Aziraphale taking responsibility for the consequences of 6000 years spent with humanity and interacting with them. 

If anyone has things - possibly better thought out- to say about this bit of the book, please feel free to add onto this post. 

[youngblossom]

Hey, friends. I’m writing this post to ask for help for my fiancé. Jude has officially scheduled his top surgery procedure for February 25th, 2020. So as of yesterday, his surgery is four months away. That seems like a lot of time, but Jude & I are quickly realizing how little time that is, not only to prepare mentally & physically for this surgery, but mostly to prepare financially. Jude & I both work full-time jobs, and we’re saving practically every spare penny we have towards making this surgery happen. Between what both of us have saved combined with what he’s raised on GoFundMe, we have just about half of the cost of the surgery covered (not including the cost of being off work for 4-6 weeks). 

But before I beg & plead for help with this financial burden we’re facing, let me tell you a little bit about Jude & my love for him. I met Jude in April of last year, and I knew from our very first date that I was going to fall in love with him. I remember writing in my journal after our second date that I hoped I’d marry him someday. Fast forward to June of this year, I proposed to Jude & to my surprise, he had a proposal of his own, and we both ended up on one knee that day. In the last year and a half of knowing Jude, I’ve got to witness so much growth in him, and nothing has made me happier than getting to watch him & support him & hold his hand through all of this growth. His sheer determination & hardworking nature is a sight to see, but man, what’s really the absolute honor is being able to see into this boy’s heart through his actions & words. He produces so much love & gives it out endlessly to those around him, and he’s always making sure that everyone else is doing well, that they’re comfortable, that they have what they want/need. And because of this, Jude has waited nearly ten years to medically transition. He’s had to put his own needs on the back burner for nearly a decade, and it’s been an absolute pleasure to help him finally have his needs put first. In this year alone, we were able to find a doctor for Jude to begin hormones again, filed for & went to court for his legal name change, & changed his gender marker on his ID. And now top surgery is the final step in this game of long-awaited catch up. Ten fucking years. 

I love this boy, with my entire heart. And I can’t wait to see the joy & ease he’s going to experience, having a flat chest. So, I’m really just asking anyone reading this to help in one of two ways. Hell, both if you can. 

1. Donate any amount to Jude’s GoFundMe. Every single dollar counts, seriously. If you donate ONE DOLLAR, I would love to personally tell you how much it means, seriously. 

Here’s the actual link, in case the embedded link doesn’t want to work: https://www.gofundme.com/f/eh2y7h-judes-top-surgery

2. Share this post. I know not everyone has money to spare to help out strangers on the internet, but my hope is that if this is shared, more people will read this, and maybe they’ll be inspired by Jude’s story or by our love. So sharing really will help us out so much. 

I know firsthand from raising $6000 for my surgery that this IS possible; we just need people to believe in Jude just like they believed in me. 

Thank you for your time. Sending all of our love.

Jonah

[ladyoutlier]

Prompt: I don’t know if this counts as head-canon or not, but I’m interested in the idea that the Crowley’s feet get permanently damaged during the Church Scene (it follows if holy water is permanent death than consecrated ground might be permanent damage as well imo). One day, Aziraphale notices.

Falling was hardly painless. It burned and scarred and left behind a great deal of phantom pains and bad memories. Still, 6000 years was an awful lot of time for Crowley to get used to all that. Let it blend into his identity until it became as much a part of himself as his name. Though he had already proven that names were always up for debate. But it was enough time to let it shift his outlook on life and play a role in everything he did. Soon enough, he all but forgot what life was like without the pain of his Fall.

78 years, on the other hand, isn’t a lot of time for an immortal being to get used to a new source of pain, although Crowley did try his hardest to cope and continue on as normal. He wasn’t sure whether it made it better or worse that this, unlike his Fall, was most definitely self-imposed.

He had made the decision to enter that church to help out Aziraphale. Maybe it wasn’t the smartest move considering that Aziraphale would hardly be gone forever if he hadn’t intervened. He would’ve just been preoccupied for a bit up in Heaven whilst he was issued a new body. Likely, he would’ve made it back to Earth before the century was up, and all would’ve been right as rain.

But for some reason, Crowley just couldn’t let that happen. Had to save him the embarrassment as he had put it. Really though, he just wasn’t all that interested in seeing the corpse of his friend, even if it was hardly permanent. And dying probably still hurt like Hell. Aziraphale didn’t deserve that.

So he had tap-danced his way into that church, desperately trying to keep either of his feet from being too scorched by the holy divinity of God. At least the ground no longer burned when it was reduced to rubble. Still, the damage had been done, and, like his wings, his feet didn’t go back to normal. If he had thought about it a bit more, maybe he would’ve came in kneeling. God would’ve had a good chuckle at that.

It hadn’t been hard to play off the constant ache in his step when he walked. His overly dramatic saunter made it easy to play off a sudden stab of pain as just another example of his inability to remain still for too long. Really, he had the whole world fooled, even himself, that absolutely nothing was wrong whatsoever. That’s probably why he didn’t think twice about it when he swapped bodies with Aziraphale.

That’s not to say that Aziraphale felt Crowley’s pain when in his body. No, that wasn’t the case at all. If God’s holy wrath was tied to nothing but a physical body, well, it would hardly qualify as a punishment. This type of pain was linked to the soul so that whatever body Crowley incorporated, he wouldn’t be quick to get comfortable. 

Still, Crowley had never been discorporated, so his physical scars from his walk down the aisle were most definitely present on the soles of his feet. It wasn’t until a certain holy water bath where Aziraphale noticed, and it was very much the reason why he had left Crowley’s socks on for it. He considered keeping it to himself, but curiosity soon won out, and a week after deceiving Heaven and Hell,  he brought it up.

Their common place of evening banter was undoubtedly Aziraphale’s bookstore, but the angel had suggested they go to Crowley’s flat tonight instead. Surely if the demon was in his own space when Aziraphale turned the conversation to his question, he would feel more comfortable answering it. At the very least, he would have a harder time running away. Crowley had thought the change of place odd, but it wasn’t like he was going to say no to Aziraphale.

They were a couple bottles in, relaxed on an L-shaped couch that hadn’t existed four hours ago, before Aziraphale had the confidence to turn the conversation. It was a real shame to bring down the merry atmosphere with this, but this just wasn’t something he could shrug off.

“What did it feel like? Falling that is?” This wasn’t a new question the angel posed to the demon. Every now and then he would ask it, and Crowley would give him a slightly different answer each time.

“Like that warm bubbly God’s grace inside you suddenly got much too hot.”

“Is that how your feet feel too?” Aziraphale asked as nonchalantly as he could.

“What?” Crowley all but dropped his glass.

“I—I just noticed in our little escapade last week where we, you know, pulled one over our respective head offices…” He paused to look at Crowley who stared at him slightly slack-jawed. “Well, I noticed you had scars on the soles of your feet. Rather extreme ones too. And—and considering we can look any way we please and do away with things like scars, I assumed that these in particular must be related to a holy event.”

“Yeah it was.” The demon’s mouth was a thin line. “A holy event.”

“Oh, I do hope you didn’t step in that holy water I gave you. Everything in me said that I shouldn’t give it to you, but I did anyway.”

“Nah, was before that. 1941. Church. You know.”

Of course he knew. Crowley had once again showed up to save the day and, more importantly, his books. It was the kindest act anyone had ever done for him, and the demon refused to let him properly thank him for it. The holy water had been his later attempt at that.

“Dear Lord, Crowley. This didn’t happen to you because you felt the need to save me, did it?”

Crowley cringed at Aziraphale’s tone of voice. Last thing he wanted was the angel’s sympathy—or his guilt for that matter. “I wasn’t bloody certain what would happen when I went into that church. Figure a bit of foot pain isn’t that bad considering.”

“How’s a permanent injury to your celestial being not bad?”

“Well, the Almighty could’ve smited me then and there for stepping foot into Her holy sanctuary. Everything kind of pales compared to that.”

Aziraphale’s jaw practically fell off. “You thought the Almighty might smite you, and you still went in to save me?!?”

“I hoped the whole saving an angel thing would convince Her to go easy on me.”

“Crowley!”

“I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

And he meant it. Absolutely one hundred percent meant it. He’d do anything for Aziraphale, although he usually tried to keep him from knowing that.

“I’d rather you not maim yourself—or risk your life—for me. Especially when it’s a non-lethal situation!” Aziraphale was now standing, his wine glass forgotten on the coffee table.

“With how your relationship with Heaven is, I’d say there’s all the more reason for me to.”

“Then I hope you don’t mind me saying that I’ll do the same for you going forward.”

And now Crowley was standing as well. “Of course I mind!”

“So, do you see where I’m coming from? Will you trust me to handle myself.”

Crowley sat back down, defeated, and Aziraphale followed suit.

“I’ll do my best, angel.”

They were silent for a moment with Aziraphale’s gaze turned to the demon’s snakey boots. He cleared his throat and spoke up. “So your feet do hurt then?”

“‘S fine when I’m sitting down.”

“And when you’re not?”

“Maybe hurts a bit now and then.” Crowley shrugged in an attempt to downplay his words as much as possible.

“Is there—”

“No, Aziraphale. Nothing you can do unless you also have a way to make my wings white again. And don’t say bleach. It’s not a funny joke.”

“Never would have thought of it, dear.” He moved closer to Crowley on the couch. “But I can’t stand to sit here knowing you’re in pain.”

A confused yet knowing expression flooded Crowley’s face. “Demons are use to pain, angel. We always feel it. The Fall wasn’t a one-and-done deal. We just get used to what it feels like.”

“Oh.” It’s a small little noise that escapes Aziraphale’s lips. One that holds a lot more emotional meaning than the word’s dictionary one. “Crowley, I—I didn’t know.”

“It’s not like I ever told ya.” He avoided the angel’s gaze. “Like I said, we get used to it. No use crying about some 6000 year old drama, now is there?”

“I’m so sorry. That sounds absolutely awful. I wish I could, I mean, there has to be—”

“Can we please not turn this into a pity party. Really I’m fine. As fine as I’ve ever been anyway. And I’d really just like to get sloshed with my best friend, if you don’t mind.”

It was time to back off. Crowley was done with this conversation. To the demon’s benefit, he had given Aziraphale a lot. Let loose quite a few secrets, and the angel appreciated that. If Crowley just wanted to drink now and have a good time, Aziraphale was going to do his best to give him a good evening.

“Of course. I shouldn’t have pushed you on this. We can go back to drinking.” 

He picked his wine glass back up but didn’t return to his side of the couch, instead remaining next to Crowley. If the demon minded, he didn’t show any sign of it. 

If Aziraphale couldn’t offer him any relief for his physical and spiritual pain, he could at least provide Crowley with his company. Really, that’s all Crowley wanted. Just Aziraphale’s company. Because, even though he didn’t tell the angel, just being around Aziraphale made him forget all about every ounce of pain he had ever felt.

[stammiviktor]

yuri on ice & good omens: an analysis

No two shows have ever drawn me in as quickly or as thoroughly as Yuri on Ice and Good Omens. I’d only ever written for two different fandoms before these and, for those other shows, I started watching them young and fell in love slowly. I wrote extensively, but the focus was rarely on romance—usually I was somewhat ambivalent toward the possible pairings, or I liked the pairing only because of a one-sided interest in one of the characters. Up until I got obsessed with YOI two years ago, I thought maybe *I* was ambivalent to romance, which was why falling for Yuri on Ice (and Viktor and Yuuri’s love story) was such a surprise. 

Now I feel like something extremely similar has happened with me for Good Omens and Aziraphale and Crowley’s story, and I’m starting to notice a lot of parallels. I think there’s something similar at the core of both shows that has drawn me to them, some fundamental aspects that they share, and I thought I’d share them in case anyone is interested, in this essay I will—

Sections: 

Relationship Dynamics

Character Similarities

How the Story’s Told

Main Themes

1) Relationship Dynamics 

The main couples are the beating heart of each show, and they actually have a lot of similarities in the ways they love each other. 

In both shows, the main couple defies the world’s expectations. Both couples share a similar niche group—elite professional figure skaters in YOI, celestial beings in GO. Within these groups, the main two characters are adversaries, in the case of GO, and competitors (separated by the non-traversable boundary of their difference in skill level, in Yuuri’s mind) in the case of YOI. The relationships they develop with one another are shocking or even taboo to the people in these groups, and even perhaps to the characters themselves in the beginning. But they are drawn together by something important they share, and they just kind of say “screw the world, I love you, you’re mine”. 

In both shows, part of the reason they fall in love with each other is that they understand one another on a level that no one else could. 

Aziraphale and Crowley are the only celestial beings that love the Earth and humankind the way they do, and over the years they come to enjoy it together, drawn together by this shared appreciation. They also have a lot in common in regards to their situations regarding Heaven/Hell. They each know what it is like to take orders from and report to a Head Office where they don’t feel particularly welcome, understood, or appreciated; to live in the earthly plane in their human bodies for thousands of years; to have no one really understand them; to question the way things are.

Viktor and Yuuri are both VERY dedicated to the ice and have let a lot of their life (and love) pass them by because of it. They had sacrificed a lot and understand the mental toll it can take, for different reasons. They know what it’s like to struggle to accept love, to put on a brave face, and to compete anyway. They understand that drive for perfection that gets them up at 5am six days a week. Yuuri always had a secret drive to beat Viktor and to be the best, though he would never admit it out loud and assumed everyone else would laugh at him if he admitted it—but Viktor immediately was on board with this, and basically said, “Yes, you have what it takes if you gain confidence, let’s get you there”. Viktor, on the other hand, wanted to retire because he was burnt out and nothing surprised or inspired him anymore, but he didn’t think he could. He knew the world would think, “What the hell, you’re at the top of the world, what would you even do if you retired?”—but there was Yuuri saying, “Be my coach!” and not telling Viktor he’s insane for not wanting to skate. He validates him, only pushing him back toward the ice because he sees Viktor longing for it and feels guilty (but not because “You’re the five-time world champion you HAVE to”). They understand and accept one another where the rest of the world would not (or at least it’s perceived that they would not).

They meet each other where they are. This is straight up a line from YOI obviously, but it applies so well to Aziraphale and Crowley’s relationship as well. This isn’t all that different from the last point about understanding one another, but here it’s important that they always try to let this understanding inform their behavior towards the other person. 

Viktor, as Yuuri’s coach, attempts adjust to his approach to meet Yuuri’s needs. He sees the hang-ups Yuuri has and helps him resolve them (being convinced he can’t do “Eros”, thinking he’s a failure and lacking confidence, etc) instead of just blindly pushing him forward. Yuuri, who previously isn’t shown to be a very touchy person while sober (he doesn’t even hug his mom when he returns home after five years), welcomes and reciprocates Viktor’s touch (which seems to be his love-language, so to speak). Yuuri doesn’t belittle Viktor for his insecurities (like the whole hair thinning issue), just apologizes when he accidentally offends him and only points out the issues again in a sweet gesture (ep7) that means “I see your shortcomings and I still accept you”. They don’t make each other conform to their expectations. They definitely have misfires in communication (aka the “let’s end this” and the “I’ll step down as your coach” scenes) but it’s because they’re trying too hard to meet each other where they are while their understanding of one another is still developing.

Crowley is maybe the definition of meeting Aziraphale where he is— he understands Aziraphale, knows what makes him tick, know he relies on philosophical logic to justify his actions. Whenever he proposes something (like stopping Armageddon or their Arrangement) he works through it logically and doesn’t belittle Aziraphale for his hesitance—he just reframes the suggestion. He doesn’t belittle Aziraphale for things like being a bit neurotic about the paintball stain, or his love of his book collection; when he breaks the news to Aziraphale about the fire (twice), he is so delicate and looks so sad for him. And Aziraphale, despite the whole “You go too fast for me” thing, still meets Crowley where he is, even if he plays dumb sometimes (after all, he does get on board the plot to raise and later kill the antichrist, and the decision to give Crowley holy water). He never ever uses Crowley being a demon as a way to claim he is somehow morally inferior or unforgivable in order to win an argument; he values Crowley for who he is (damned or not). He pushes Crowley by calling him “nice” only because they both know it’s true, and Crowley needs to own up to that in the same way Aziraphale needs to learn to stand up to Heaven. They do this lovely little dance around each other as their relationship develops, respecting one another, getting to know one another and the ways they fit together and it is beautiful.

They just... are so in love with each other in such a healthy way. The way they look at each other with stars in their eyes (there are so many scenes in both shows, but just compare the kiss scene in YOI episode 7 to the 1941 Blitz scene as they stand in the rubble of the church in GO ep3—the looks in their eyes!!). It’s Mutual Pining Up The Wazoo and there is just so much tenderness in the way they love each other. They also each value the things the other person loves (Viktor values and Hasetsu/the Katsukis/Katsudon, Yuuri values Makkachin and Viktor’s skating, Aziraphale and Crowley value each other’s earthly possessions and vices (the Bentley, the book collection, the paintball’d jacket, delicious food). And finally they both take great joy in each other’s happiness and success. 

2) Character Similarities

All of these characters have a ton of depth. They’re complex and flawed, some of them in similar ways.

Yuuri and Aziraphale are anxious kings of cognitive dissonance; they both hold a lot of contradicting things as true and have to find a way to resolve them in order to develop as characters and in their relationships.

In Yuuri’s case, the illogical nature of his anxiety is key. He knows he is objectively a great skater, he’s among the top ten male singles skaters in the world and he qualified for a competition that only takes the top six, but he also feels like an imposter, a “dime-a-dozen” competitor, and he constantly downplays his success and his skill level. Also, in the parking garage scene, he is terrified that Victor secretly wants to step down as his coach, yet he admits a second later that he knows that it’s not true (which I’ve seen people who experience anxiety say is common). Yuuri feels weak and yet he knows he’s strong. He is anxious at the prospect of failure and feels keenly the sacrifices others have had to make for him, and feels like he has a lot to lose even while he doesn’t think his career has been successful. 

Aziraphale is also very good at living with contradiction. For 6000 years, he has been holding on very tightly to the faith that God and Her Plan are Just, and all doubts about this can be chocked up to Ineffability. And yet at the same time, he knows Crowley, a demon cast out from Heaven by God Herself, is fundamentally good. After being friends with Crowley so long, he knows that casting him out was cruel. He knows that wiping out an entire population in the Flood was cruel; knows that Heaven and its angels, and even God, can be just as horrible as demons. Aziraphale has known this from the very Beginning, of course: he gave away his flaming sword, a weapon of righteousness bestowed by God Herself, to the beings God has just cast out for sinning. He loves God, wants to follow Her and believe that She is a being of goodness and love, but he also clearly sees Her destruction and hypocrisy and he’s perfectly willing to act against Her even as he claims She has his allegiance. He has immense sympathy for humans, something he’s not necessarily supposed to feel, but he thinks it’s the right thing to do so he does it. He is just holding onto hope that the right thing to do (the compassionate, empathetic, kind thing to do) is what is going to prevail in the Ineffable Plan. He’s very anxious that his own actions are or aren’t in line with the “good” and he agonizes over that. He feels that he has a lot to lose.

So, it’s only once Yuuri and Aziraphale resolve these mental hangups, these contradictions, that they are able to grow as people and in their relationships. Yuuri gains confidence and starts to undervalue himself less and see himself as worthy of Viktor’s time, and Aziraphale finally rejects Heaven’s demands and stands for what he knows, without a doubt, is good. 

Yuuri and Aziraphale are the epitome of the “looks like a cinnamon roll but is actually a sin-namon role” trope. At first glance, they seem like adorable softies to be protected at all costs, but in reality they are as tough as nails and really don’t need any protection at all.

Yuuri is a tie-grabbing, Eros-laden menace. He is fiercely competitive, the take-no-prisoners type when it comes to his own skating. This is a man who left his family, friends, and beloved dog behind at eighteen to live in a foreign country speaking a foreign language and working his ass off for five years without even letting himself go home. This is a man who skates competitively (a very mental sport) in front of hundreds of thousands of people even with crippling anxiety. He’s a sweetheart but he is tough. 

Aziraphale, according to a reliable source, is “just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing”. He will stand up to God for the things he loves, will gleefully stick it to some Nazis and allow them to be killed in a bomb blast, will steal the holiest holy water out from under Heaven’s nose, will perform demonic acts as part of the Arrangement for the sake of convenience, will possess a woman, will maybe actually almost kill a child, will splash holy water around at some terrified Demons and demand a rubber duck during his would-be execution. Aziraphale is an Angel, but he’s no angel, so to speak.

And now for Viktor and Crowley: they both appear very confident and put together, but are actually very soft and insecure on the inside. They are the characters you start out thinking, “Wow this guy is so confident and he’s got so much swagger,” but it’s revealed that they are actually very soft, unsure of themselves, and (probably) have something in their past that hurt them. 

We don’t know much about Viktor’s past, and as much as I want him to have loving parents, it is very possible based off of s1 that that is not the case. The way he hides himself behind a mask and tries to conform himself to what he thinks other people want could come from a lifetime in the spotlight, or from neglectful parents as well. His behavior speaks of abandonment issues to me, especially the way he tries to handle Yuuri’s breakdown in the parking garage. No matter his past, he’s got some issues behind that confident smile he presents to the world. He’s lonely, afraid of the future, and not quite sure who he is.

Crowley is... probably self-explanatory in this regard. He presents this front of a definitely-not-nice-confident-demon, but in reality he’s *shudder* nice. He refuses to do anything evil (like kill children, or honestly anything more than mildly frustrating people), and he has serious abandonment issues of the divine-parental sort that he takes out on potted plants. 

3) How the Story’s Told

In the context of the series as a whole, both love stories unfold in similar ways that encourage fan engagement.

Despite having two fairly clear main characters, both shows are dominated (in terms of screen-time) by assorted other characters and storylines. In YOI this starts on the back half of the show once the competitions begin and we are introduced to a huge ensemble of other skaters and their programs; in GO, this happens pretty much from the beginning with all of the various side characters and plots that lead up to the Apocalypse. This leaves somewhat limited screen-time for relationship development in both shows (which total around 4-5 hours each).

Because of this, there is a lot that happens off screen in both shows. In YOI, we have the famed Summer of Mutual Pining of which we only get a couple of glimpses; in GO, we have Six-Thousand Years of Mutual Pining that we only see bits and pieces of as well. When we catch back up with the characters, a lot has undoubtedly happened—they get much more comfortable with one another, and in YOI ep7 Viktor says “Should I just kiss you or something?” almost as if they’ve done that before; in GO ep3 in the Globe Theater scene, Crowley references their Arrangement as if they’ve already started helping each other out long before then. The audience is left out of a lot (big examples being Viktor’s POV/the banquet reveal in YOI, and the Body Swap reveal in GO) and left guessing on the infinite possibilities for those moments we didn’t get to see.

And so in both stories, you get a handful of very important relationship scenes spread throughout the show intermixed with other characters and plot. These moments are so rich in subtext and other between-the-lines meaning. How many metas have you seen analyzing every word of the engagement scene in ep10 of YOI, or the parking garage scene in ep7? How many analyzing the “you go too fast for me, Crowley” scene in ep3 or the bandstand “we can go off together” scene in GO? These moments are open to so much viewer-engagement, to analysis and reinterpretation and re-contextualization. These scenes can be read so many different ways but that’s how real life works, isn’t it? We don’t always just say exactly what we mean. Conversations are loaded with subtext and shared experience and preconceptions and the dialogue isn’t always easy to understand, and that’s wonderful.

These important scenes can sometimes be hard to connect to each other just by virtue of how spread out and between-the-lines then tend to be. But it’s not because they are poorly written or opaque— it’s because there is a lot happening off screen and in their heads that you need to figure out and connect. With the way the shows are structured, with immensely meaningful moments peppered throughout with a lot of stuff in between, there’s a lot to unpack. But this is also part of what makes both shows so engaging—by nature they welcome metas, headcanons, fanfiction, and other fanworks to fill in the gaps. I can’t tell you how many fill-in-the-gaps fics I’ve read for YOI that connect the exact same moments in canon, but each is so unique. I’m sure the same can be said for GO.

4) Main Themes

The most obvious overall similarity between these shows is that they both center around love stories between two (mostly-)male(-presenting) beings in genres where this is rare. But to call this a superficial comparison misses some important, deeper similarities.

Both exist in a narrative without homophobia and their love is so normalized. The love stories (between two men in YOI, and between two genderless celestial beings played by male actors) are never reduced to or defined by their sexualities or genders. Yuri on Ice is a love story between two men that is just straight up set in a world without homophobia. In GO, there are bits where outsiders allude to Crowley and Aziraphale’s relationship being romantic (Uriel calling Crowley Aziraphale’s “boyfriend”, and the man on the street after their fight saying “You’re better off without him”), but unlike a lot of other shows/movies this isn’t played for laughs—if there is a joke, it rests on the strangeness of applying such banal human terms to their six-thousand years of illicit celestial-being-companionship. Their relationships are treated so respectfully and beautifully and it’s so refreshing.

At the same time, the narratives are still very tied into LGBT+ experiences. People who can speak to this much better than I can have already analyzed this in detail; I’ve seen so many metas about how GO can easily be read as a queer allegory of accepting yourself and letting yourself love who you love, despite what your family (aka Heaven) might think. Yuri on Ice hits a lot of the same points. They are both stories about learning to give love and accept love, unapologetically.

Love itself is also a central theme of both stories, and not just romantic love between the leads. It’s also about Crowley and Aziraphale’s enduring companionship, their love for the Earth/humanity, and their love of God (in a complicated way). It’s about Adam loving the world, his friends, his family, and his dog. It’s about and Newt and Anathema, and Shadwell and Madame Tracy. Yuri on Ice is about Victor and Yuuri, but it’s also about the Katsuki family and friends’ love and support. It’s about loving and taking pride in your craft. It’s about Yuri’s agape with his grandfather and his relationship with Viktor and Yuuri, the skaters he looks up to. And yes, it’s about Michele and Sara’s and Georgi and Anya’s love, too. These shows are not shallow romances. Their scope is huge.

They are fundamentally happy and optimistic stories, despite dealing with very real and very serious problems. Good Omens is about the freaking apocalypse and Yuri on Ice deals with mental health issues. They could have been very gritty and dark and tragic, but they aren’t—they’re the polar opposite and are, imo, all the more impactful for it. 

And at the heart of both shows is a common theme: overcoming who you think you have to be by choosing the life you want to lead and the love you want to surround yourself with. They both end with the main couple sharing a more intimate moment than ever and looking forward to a future of endless possibility that they have worked hard to shape... And then moving forward together.

tl;dr - There might be a reason so many of us have found ourselves drawn over and over again to both of these stories...

[duhragonball]

Nanwum IV scheming

So I’ve got less than 6000 words to go on this month’s Camp Nano goal, and there’s six more days in July, which means I’m juuuuust caught up enough to get ahead of myself and think about how to handle this year’s National Novel Writing Month in November.  

For anyone just joining us, I’ve been writing this damn wienerfic for the past five years, and I’ve been using National Novel Writing Month (or Nanwum as the kids like to call it.) to power through the project and test my skills.   I’ve won three times, in 2017, 2018, and 2019.    This fall will be my fourth run.

I feel like I need a stronger plan for this one, since my first attempt in 2017 was much more structured, and I think that was a huge help.    2018 was good in the sense that I finished quickly, wrote thirty days in a row, and got an extra 10k past the goal.   I won in 2019, but it was kind of a mess, and I feel like I should take steps to keep the same thing from happening in 2020. 

So this is kind of my wishlist of stuff I want to achieve this November.   Dunno if I’m going to pull it all off, but I at least want a list of goals to score myself against.

1. Hit 50,000 words by November 20.    I’ve done this before, mostly out of fear that if I fell too far behind that I wouldn’t be able to get caught up in time to finish.  Now that I’m more experienced, fear isn’t as much of a factor, but the strategy still works, so I need to do it because it’s smart.   This would require me to write an average of 2500 words per day for the first 20 days.   

2. Write for thirty days in a row.   I pulled this off in 2018 and it felt pretty good.   In ‘17, I purposely scheduled days off for myself, which seemed like a good idea, but I think it does help me more to write at least a few words each day, if only to maintain momentum.   If I can hit goal #1, then I don’t expect great things from those final ten days.   In 2018 it was more of a victory lap.   But the idea is to keep me moving on those first 20 days.   

2a. I���d like to establish an 800 word/day minimum goal, but I’m not sure if that’s realistic.   If successful, I’d be pulling down 58,000 by 11/30/2020.   

3. Write 7000 words in one day.   So I’ve set two records for one-day writing.    The first was the clothing-optional Luffa #69, which I just pounded out in October 2017 while I was talking myself into the Nanwum experience.    That was about 6,000 words, but I’d need to look up the exact number.    The second time was November 11, 2018.  I’m more proud of that one because I had set out to hit 6,000.   Luffa #69 was just me on a roll, and wanting to finish the chapter in one day.    If I had managed to wrap it up in 3500 I would have.    

So my official record stands at 6,044 words in one day.    I’d like to break that, and I want to break it in a big way, so I’m aiming for 7000.   The way I see it, if I fail, then boo-hoo, I’ll still have a big one-day total.  

I’m thinking that maybe my best bet is to attempt this on day one.   Historically, I usually go into these things with a lot of momentum, and I’d be coming off of a day off from writing, so I’d be as fresh as possible.   So basically, 10/31, then 12:01 on 11/1 and I knock out a thousand words to start things off, and see where things go from there.   

The best way to make this work is to plan ahead just what I want to write.   It would also help if I had multiple things to switch around in case I get stuck.    What made 11/11/18 work so well was that I had a big dramatic fight scene that I’d been looking forward to, but also a couple of other chapters I could touch up.    I need similar conditions for 11/1/20.

Off the top of my head:

a.) Luffa Annual #2.  I had some fun doing a Christmas side-story with the characters, and I sort of wanted to make it an annual thing.  The trouble with Annual #1 was that I didn’t start it until December, and I couldn’t get it posted in time for Christmas, so it’s probably for the best if I just make this a fun thing I do on the side for Nano.   I’m not sure what I should do for the annual this year, although a magical girl/sentai kind of story.   Dunno how to make that about Christmas, wait, I’m an idiot, I’ll just have them fight a giant half-reindeer/half-pine tree monster that shoots missiles shaped like egg nog cartons.

...

You know, I say that like it’s a joke that I plan to workshop into something better later on, but honestly, that’s probably as good as it’s going to get.    Sorry to spoil everyone.   Pinedeer confirmed for brawl.

b.) Mega Chiaotzu?    Fuck it, Mega Chiaotzu.

c.) Look, I don’t want to get to spoiler-y, but I should be pretty deep into the Xenoverse phase of the story by November, so I had thoughts in mind for a Time Patrol mission to the Ginyu Force leg of the Namek Saga, basically for the sole purpose of having Luffa guest-star in DBZ Episode 66, the episode that inspired the character.   L U F F A C E P T I O N, if you will.

d.) On that note, I need to start introducing my Time Patrol supporting cast members, such as Excitebike, Big League Chew, and Dewar.    Man I almost forgot Dewar’s name for a second, I’d better do him first.   

I dunno, I think those four ideas ought to carry me past 7k.     I don’t expect to finish all of them, or even any of them on 11/1/18, but that should keep me busy.  

To summarize all this, if my plan goes well, I’d be looking at 7000 words on the first day, then I’d need to write 2263 words/day to hit 50k by 11/20.   Then I could take it easy and write 800 a day through the 30th.   That’s going to be tough, but do-able.   2000 a day has been a decent cruising speed for me in past years, but I feel like I’ve really fallen off of that lately.    The goal here will be to push myself to get back into that mode, and I think all the work I’ve been doing in January through September will really get me where I need to be.   Of course, I gotta finish July first, so if you’ll excuse me.

[internaljiujitsu]

You’re Not Lazy, You’re Just Human: 8 Steps To Forge Discipline

I’ve always felt lazy, though I never looked the part. I started lifting weights religiously when I was twelve years old — so long ago that I don’t remember what it’s like not to work out. When you’re fit, people make assumptions about you just like they do when you’re fat. Fit people are like walking billboards for discipline. We get asked all the time how we can skip dessert or go to the gym instead of playing video games and eating pizza. The truth is, plenty of gym rats plop their asses on the couch for some Grand Theft Auto after training, but in at least one area of their lives, they’ve built beneficial long term habits.

Fit people may be disciplined enough to get to the gym because they have a passion for exercise, get a “high” from working out or are just vain — That doesn’t mean they are disciplined people. It means they’ve forged discipline in one part of their life. That’s not the same as a disciplined life in which your practice is reflected in everything you do.

I began competing as a bodybuilder when I was fourteen years old. My training and eating habits were very strict, particularly before a contest. I lived in the world of 6000 calories and twice a day workouts for nine years, but I didn’t give a damn about my health. I just wanted to be as big and freakish looking as possible. I was disciplined about lifting heavy weights and consuming 300 grams of protein a day because I had a singular goal. The other parts of my life were chaotic. I partied like a rock star when I wasn’t training for a show, used recreational drugs and would balloon up to fifty pounds over contest weight in the off season. A disciplined person, I was not, though I was building my affinity for discipline with each can of dry tuna I forced down my throat.

When I was done with competitive bodybuilding, I attacked martial arts with the same dedication pumping iron taught me. The difference was that I was older and had gone through such an intense period of being driven by superficiality and carnal desires that I was hungry for a better way of living. As I learned lessons in martial arts, I consciously applied them to everything. The more proficient I became at fighting, the more at ease I operated in my life.

At my most passionate, I only wanted to go to the gym or dojo 75% of the time. The rest of the workouts I downright hated it. I did it anyway. Why?

I don’t care for having a “boss” because I don’t like doing things just because someone told me to. Instead, I make myself do things I don’t want to do because I think they’re important. They may not appear to be needle movers from the outside, but internally these personal challenges form the scaffolding that allow me to keep reaching higher.

Doing tough tasks because they help me grow started out as me trying to prove myself. What I didn’t realize then was that managing ADHD and depression necessitates that I keep myself constantly engaged. Now, discipline has become a way of consciously exercising control of my mind and body. Starting out on a regimented path doesn’t always come easily. There’s a period of misery that must be endured before you break yourself. But once properly trained, you can get yourself to do just about anything.

Here are the seven steps that help me build lasting habits and make me seem like a disciplined person:

KNOW THE WHAT AND THE WHY

First off, figure out what you want. What do you want to change and why do you want to change it? What are you getting out of this new habit you want to form? If the reason isn’t significant enough, you won’t stick to it. That’s a guarantee.

I’d been wanting to cut gluten for a while with no success. I loved bread and pizza but I knew cutting them out would help me get leaner and feel better. But that wasn’t enough motivation for me. When I noticed my skin was dry and breaking out, and cutting gluten might help, I made the decision to stop instantly. When research into brain health showed me the effects of inflammation due to gluten consumption, the change became permanent. My brain is just too important to me.

2. KNOW WHAT’S BEEN STOPPING YOU

This doesn’t mean pointing figures at some bullshit excuse like not having enough time or loving cupcakes too much to avoid diabetes. There’s a deeper reason you haven’t already gotten started on the road to a fitter body, better job or more fulfilling relationship. Maybe you don’t think you deserve a better life. Maybe you don’t wanna outshine someone you care about. Is this stuff you are consciously aware of? Probably not, so it will take some digging to figure it out, and maybe a little professional help. Before you can reprogram your mind into making your new habit stick, you’ve gotta subconsciously believe you’re worth it.

3. ONCE YOU DECIDE, STOP THINKING ABOUT IT

The time to deliberate is before you’ve decided. Once your mind is made up, that’s it. There’s no more discussion to be had. Shutting the door to any possible objection means there’s no haggling. You do what you gotta do, no questions asked. That means no “I’ll do it tomorrow,” or “just this once.”

The moment you begin entertaining excuses, you are vulnerable to give in.

4. MAKE IT THROUGH THE MUD

It’s gonna be terrible. Don’t be surprised and don’t act like it’s supposed to be some other way. Make the most of the lessons you learn while you’re down in the dirt.

The longer you do it, the easier it will get. Not that the actual thing becomes easier, but you think less of the misery before doing it. It’s just the way it is, and until you’ve learned to love it, you’re gonna hate it.

5. IGNORE THE QUITTING VOICE

During the hating it phase, you will be telling yourself to quit. You’ll say it’s not worth it and it won’t matter if you stop. It is and it does. Keep going or you will absolutely regret it.

6. IT’S OK TO ENJOY IT

Once you’ve done it enough times on the days you didn’t want to, you’ll start to occasionally look forward to the torture. You’ll wonder why you’re not dreading it anymore. Don’t question it. You’re changing. Just go with it.

7. WHEN YOU WANNA DO EXTRA, GO FOR IT

There are days you’re barely gonna squeak by. You’re gonna just finish. Then there will be days, once you’ve gone through what author Seth Godin calls, “The Dip,” that long valley of drudgery enroute to self improvement, that you’ll have plenty left in the tank in the end. Do more! Go until you have that, “ok, I’m done,” feeling. Take advantage of your high energy days because you won’t always have them.

A little extra practice here and there will go a long way, but always make sure to stop short of burn out. Leave yourself wanting more while confident you gave your all at your maximum attention level. You should definitely push until the wheels fall off once in a while, but for the most part stop once you start drifting. Too many torture sessions will make you hate the thought of practice. You probably won’t enjoy or retain what you do from that point on and your progress will suffer.

8. DON’T GO FOR THE SHORT TERM

See what you’re doing as a life change. No matter the habit you are building, discipline is cumulative. As you challenge yourself to do difficult shit, conquering or mastering something and leaving it behind does not mean momentum has to stop. Moving on to learn something new, whether related to the first thing or not, will prevent a lull in your creative thinking and keep you building on your progress. With each difficult endeavor you stick to, you build the skills and systems to conquer the challenges ahead.

Don’t label yourself as lazy. It’s a cop out. Everybody has the potential to sit on their ass and vegetate. Take this seven step approach to snapping yourself out of complacency and you’ll be on your way to real change — I know you’ve got it in you. Remember, disciplined people love lying on the couch just as much as slackers do, we just like progress a little bit more.

[quipadeedoodaa]

I Had a Wits End

Had this dream shortly after discovering Good Omens. I thought I might use it for something, but honestly it’s great as is, directly from my brain as I typed it after waking up. It makes me giggle still XD they’re such dorks.

Putting it under the cut because it is LONG!

Contains: Fluff, Adam, Dream nonsense logic, bad photoshopping, genetic experimentation, and both of them being stupid. Also, Aziraphale probably smites someone.

Ineffable Husbands Dream August.01.19

Aziraphale is meandering town just thinking and remembering the insults from Gabriel and begins to wonder if Crowley thinks he's soft to. In the midst of fretting if his literal demon soulmate he saved the world with thinks he's physically attractive, he notices a new business, not realizing he's wandered into a shadier part of town. Its a gym! Well, really that would solve everything, wouldn't it?! Excited he goes in just to see the people inside are like HYPERmuscular.

"Oh! Oh uh, oh dear, um..."

Evil eyes catch sight of him and the only person with natural proportions comes along, the shop owner, a skeezy looking business man.

"Can I help you with something?"

"Ah, well, maybe, you see, I was hoping to try working out."

Skeezy dude eyes this smol soft cinnamon roll and grins wider. "You came to the right place. Why don't you let us set you up a routine." escorts a less nervous, and now babbling incessantly about his worry/desire to try bettering himself, Aziraphale further into the building.

Meanwhile, Crowley's been tracking down the source of some very illegal and highly dangerous genetic experimentation. Which just so happens to be based at the same Gym. He has no idea Aziraphale is going there to work out and is gone from home often enough to not notice Aziraphale is too.

The experiments aren’t just on people, but animals too. Just making things bigger, more dangerous and destructive. Crowley gets caught snooping so he finds out the hard way when he's being chased and almost loses his car again. "Not the Bentley!! Anything but that!"

Crowley is a literal noodle, and discovers exactly how prone to bruises he is, so many so he's exhausted from miracling them away.

Scene cut to home, apparently Adam and Dog visit often enough because they were there. And Adam shows Crowley that skeezy gym being advertised in a magazine b/c Crowley had told Adam about what was happening, but not Aziraphale. He didn't want to tell the angel the horrors he'd found out. Crowley never reads the article, which is a shame because if he did, he'd know Aziraphale had already been involved in all this and telling him could've helped.

‘Cause all the example pictures in the article include Aziraphale. Which I’ll spoil now is HILARIOUS b/c it's actually just Zira’s head photoshopped on a buff body because, as the masterminds have discovered (and thus think Zira is the perfect experiment) is that Aziraphale's body does not react at all to their chemicals. I mean it’s only a corporation after all. It was built as it is now and has never changed for 6000 years. Aziraphale is literally just going there to work out like at a leisure gym (ex: planet fitness if y’all have em) and socialize b/c despite being intimidating, these people are quite nice!

So while Crowley is freaking out, Adam had stepped out of the room to search for Aziraphale for food. Aziraphale enters in one of those wrestling spandex  numbers, and starts flexing and Crowley just completely forgets what he was just thinking about for a moment when he turns around and sees Aziraphale being an enormous dweeb in clothes uglier than usual. "...What on earth are you wearing?"

"I've been working out!" 

".........." Aziraphale looks exactly the same except the very ugly outfit if you could even call it that. "right. well..." 

And then Crowley freaks out because a moth had flown in and oh shitohshitojsgit!!! because one of the attacks had been via a giant moth monster. And now Aziraphale is worried about him. Miracles his normal clothes back on and decides maybe some food would help, he HAD been gone a lot lately. He sees Adam in the kitchen and shoos him back to Crowley "I’m worried about him, be a dear and make sure he's alright while I fix dinner."

Adam and dog return to the room to find super paranoid Crowley holding a massive egg like it's a time bomb, several holes are in the ceiling, but the moth is gone. Aziraphale realizes he's too worried to cook so just miracles some food and returns with it.

Crowley goes off on a long tangent about what's happening and what that Gym has been doing, which Aziraphale stands behind Crowley by the door holding a dish of noodles the whole time in shock, occasionally getting Crowley’s full attention for a section while he paces around. I forgot the exact words of his rant but he covered the human experimentation, the fact the egg was a moth egg and very dangerous and WOULD be exploding at some point most likely, almost losing the car again, ACTUALLY losing or at least sustaining massive damage to his home.

And Aziraphale is just filling with righteous fury for his husband and that he had so easily been tricked not that Crowley knows it yet. So Aziraphale makes eye contact with Adam and conveys he's going to take care of this, sets the noodles on the bed and leaves. But Crowley doesn't notice this, he just keeps talking fears of what these humans were truly capable of and accidentally knocks over the noodles. Dog rushes to eat them the movement catching Crowley’s attention and no! OH NO! "AZIRAPHALE!!" He falls to the noodles hands trying to gather them all up. "AZIRAPHALE!! What have they DONE to you!! Dog no! DON'T EAT HIM! AZIRAPHALE!!!" 

He scoops all the noodles back into the dish and holds it like a baby, you can notice very dark circles under his eyes as his glasses having fallen off, or askew during his meltdown. He’s shaking and in panic and Adam is quite worried about this fool. Why would he think the noodles were Aziraphale? but doesn't question yet, just lets Crowley drag him into a fear cling with the noodles. 

Ending with a hysterically sobbed "I used to have a Wits End and now it's GONE!" referring to the apparent name of this house Wits End, that’s been destroyed in several places and his husband gone! And Adam just pats him on the back. There there Crowley...

This is the point I woke up, but I retained knowledge of what happens next despite not seeing it.

Aziraphale storms the gym with the full brunt of God's wrath and not only destroys the building but all the research data AND miracles the information out of their minds. Just hits the place like a missile undoing everything. And the boss is done last so he KNOWS he fucked up using this nerd for a test subject. "What ARE you?"

"Fear not, I'm nothing you will ever remember." and then he doesn't.

It's not perfect like if Adam had willed it away but it was still satisfying to destroy things that had caused Crowley such harm.

And it's been awhile since he got to do a BIG miracle

Later. Once Crowley is calmed down, Adam’s gone home, and Aziraphale is there to ground his demon. Crowley calls him out on going to a gym at all. Aziraphale blushes and is all "I feared you would grow bored of me. I am soft, as you know... Not much of an angel either." 

"But you're my angel." Crowley says blunt and 'duh' as possibly

Aziraphale gives a big ole smile and hugs him more. "I'm sorry I'd forgotten."

"Well... Don't do it again!"

"I promise."

End

[dasfuzzy]

This thing still exists...?

So...I guess I'll start off by saying that the main reason for this post is because I got the Tumblr app a while back and have periodically gotten the notification that someone has liked my blog (hello, by the way), so this is twofold:

1) Give an update because, y'know, I haven't touched this thing in a long time, so there's a lot to update, and

2) Find out who's been liking my blog and why. So I guess comment, message, note, or whatever the hell people do here and let me know what got you interested in my ramblings.

I guess the three main things I would discuss here were my job, my love life, and my situation in general, so those'll be the primary focus for now. I guess I'll start with my love life just to get that out of the way as it's typically the focal point and most salacious content here (and possibly the most interesting to y'all).

Well, I'm gonna tell you right off the bat that things have changed drastically since I last was here. I will say that if you're expecting me to tell all, you're gonna be disappointed. I know in the past I never really held back on my feelings and about dishing out the truth, but this is a different situation than any in the past. All I'll really say is that since August of 2017 I've been in a committed relationship with someone that I truly love and can see myself being with for the rest of my days. Our relationship hasn't been all sunshine and rainbows, however, mostly due to nagging injuries and surgeries stemming from a work-related injury on her part (she used to be a physical therapy assistant), but I've done everything in my power to accommodate her and make things work. It hasn't been easy and it's taken it's toll on me, but at the end of the day I try to remain optimistic that things will get better with time.

Regarding my job...er, jobs, I've bounced around a bit since I was last here. I think I was still at Dave & Busters, but I was able to leave there to become a preschool/toddler teacher at a highly-accredited daycare center called Bright Horizons. It wasn't the easiest job and with me being who I am (profane and a fan of mature content, a la Game of Thrones, Walking Dead and wrestling) I felt like I was walking on eggshells at times, especially because the director was a bit of a prude, but I really enjoyed it. I was one of only two male teachers in a facility of approximately 30 teachers, so the kids really enjoyed the change of pace. I learned a lot being there, especially since I only had a few early education courses under my belt beforehand and I had some great mentors guiding me along.

Unfortunately, I made the decision to leave after 18 months for a couple of reasons:

1) The landlady finally sold the house, so my mom and I had to move (more on that later), and

2) There was an incident where I might've let slip a bit of profanity on the job. Basically it was nap time and most of the children were sleeping. I was in one of the preschool rooms at the time and at that age, some children just don't want to sleep, so we have to either try to soothe them or at least do what we can to keep them quiet so they don't wake the other children up. So I'm with another, younger teacher sitting with the non-sleepers, one of which was on the autistic spectrum and had an action plan in place that inform us of what we can and cannot do in certain situations that normally wouldn't apply to other children. Anyways, that particular child was not having any of nap/quiet time and decided to start walking around the room. In my frustration, I might've uttered under my breath "what the fuck". A few days later, I get a call from the director and she asks me if I used any profanity while in the classroom. I tell her that I don't recall doing so; she tells me that another teacher informed her that I had and she would need me to type up a formal statement of what I recall from that particular event. I stuck to my guns and said that I honestly don't recall doing so and, after submitting that to her, I was put on an indefinite administrative leave. As much as I loved that job, I took that as a sign that maybe it was time to find another job, something that pays better because I knew I was going to be moving within the next few months.

On the first day of my "leave", I asked friends if they knew of any good-paying jobs that had openings. I was only making $12.40/hr, which is only $.40 over minimum wage, so I was definitely open to suggestions. My best friend told me to apply to where he worked, Fitzgerald Tile, because they were looking for warehouse workers. He said they could start me at $18, so I leapt at the opportunity. I went down that Monday and met the warehouse supervisor to have an interview. I'll give you an almost word-for-word retelling of how that interview went:

Him: "Do you know how to drive a forklift?"

Me: "Yeah."

Him: "Great, you're hired."

Me: "Oh...okay."

Okay, that might be stretching it a bit, but that was more or less how it went. Really, he outlined some of the basic duties, asked if I was able to lift up to 50lbs unassisted, know that I'm expected to work 50 hours a week, then had me fill out the application, mostly for the sake of having it on file. He told me that I would just have to meet with the HR person to finalize the paperwork and discuss pay and my schedule, then I'd be good to go. Here's the thing: I never got to talk to the HR person. Ever. I was waiting for over an hour then told that we could do it another time, so I just went home. I should've noticed how sketchy the whole thing was. I should've picked up on all the red flags, but I didn't. So I go home, call my boss, and tell her that I'm giving my two weeks notice. She obliges and I ask if I could come visit down the road. She says that it would be in the best interest of the children that I stay away so they don't get the wrong idea. Basically I haven't been back there besides one time when I stopped by after hours to catch up with my favorite colleague and mentor, Jen.

Anywho, here I am on November 19th at the asscrack of dawn starting at the tile warehouse. I meet with the warehouse supervisor (I don't fucking remember his name; he's honestly not worth remembering) and he asks if I know how to drive a forklift. Uh...we talked about that when you hired me, but anyways, I say yes. "Great. Hop on, drive around a bit, get a feel for it, then get to work." Um...I dunno about those guys, but when I was at Lowe's where I learned to drive a forklift, we had to be licensed to operate one. Not to mention if they bothered to do a background check, they'd learn that I was fired from there for getting into an accident on a forklift and causing damage to a bay door. But I do as they say; I grab an order sheet ("grab the biggest ones first", they tell me) and get to it. Basically the way they run things is they put the sheets out on a table, everyone grabs one, gathers everything up on a pallet, then drop it in the outgoing delivery area, then do it all again until every order has been filled. I should also mention that I started right as they were moving warehouses to North Reading, so after the orders were pulled, we had to get other pallets ready to ship to the new place. Remember how I said I was never able to talk to the HR person? Well, I was never given a schedule because of that, so I guess it was understood that I would come in at 7 in the morning and work until everyone was done, which typically wasn't until 8 or 9 at night. I adhered to that mindset for maybe a week and a half; after that, I started sneaking out after at least doing my 8 hours a day. One day the supervisor caught me and said that I can't do that again. I didn't give a fuck. Another day he tells me that I'm not working fast enough and need to step it up. Maybe if someone took the time to train me on the other lift that was smaller and had forks that extended, I'd be able to be more efficient, but no; the only machines I could use were the huge lifts that are barely able to maneuver in the narrow fucking aisles and the order picker, which is basically a standing lift with a small tray-sized platform that you could place stuff on and lower it back down. That thing was kinda fun because it had controlls that kinda felt like piloting a mech and it was fast as hell.

Fast forward a few days and a few hours into my shift the supervisor tells me that I'm being let go and he hands me my last check and a pamphlet for unemployment benefits. No reasoning, just that I'm gone. Probably because I was "working too slow" and would leave when I felt like it, but I could give two shits; they never cared about me and I was tired of working under those unreasonable conditions. I manage keep my composure and start heading out, telling the few friends that I made there that I was fired; they wished me well and said I'd move onto something better. No shit. Once I get to my car, I burst out crying, trying to comprehend the gravity of my situation. I text my girlfriend and she asks if I want to come over to her house; I do partly because I needed the emotional support and partly because she was only 5 minutes away and my drive home would've been about 30 minutes. Honestly, I probably could've reported them to OSHA since they were in violation of god knows how many rules and regulations (hell, during the first week at the new warehouse, someone managed to destroy an entire bay: 3 shelves with 4 pallets each, totalling I believe over $6000 worth of product), but I just wanted to wash my hands of that place entirely. Since it was mid December, I decided to just take time to enjoy the holidays before looking for a new job, especially since I had made enough money there to keep myself afloat for about a month.

So, regarding the move, mom and I spent the last few years looking for places nearby for when the time came, but a lot of places were either in undesirable towns, were too expensive (this is Massachusetts; rent prices suck balls), or didn't meet our needs/standards. Ideally we were aiming to find a small house or even duplex to move into since we'd been in a 2-story, 3-bedroom house since January 2001, but we ended up settling for a 2-bedroom apartment in a small complex in Reading. It's been a bit of an adjustment for many reasons, but we've made it work. One of the biggest annoyances is that we don't have any laundry machines in our unit or even our building, so if we have to wash our clothes, we need to bring our stuff to one of the neighboring buildings that has a credit card-opperated laundry room with seven washers and 8 dryers. Kinda obnoxious to have to go through all that trouble and pay to do it, but condidering heat, hot water, and facility maintenance and snow removal are all covered in our rent (which is $1750/month), it's a small price to pay, I suppose.

Once we got all settled into the new place, I started job hunting again. For years I've wanted to do something technical, like be a plumber or maintenance engineer, but it's nigh impossible to find entry-level jobs like that. I somehow managed to find a job posting on Craigslist for a preventative maintenance engineer at a hotel in my old hometown of Woburn (ironically it's across from my old Dave & Busters), put in an application, and about a week later I had the job. Basically what I do is go through the guestrooms and make sure everything is in working order and is clean. I do about 2 rooms a day, repairing things as needed, be it electrical, plumbing, painting, or whatever else. I started back in early February of this year and in April the chief engineer was unceremoniously fired, leaving me as the sole engineer at the hotel. We had outside help come in periodically, but generally speaking I was the one keeping the place together until we hired a new chief this past October. I had to learn how to take care of an outdoor pool and how to take readings on it daily. I had to represent my hotel at engineer trainings normally meant for chiefs. Hell, I was very close to being promoted to chief myself until they found the new guy. But my efforts weren't in vain: our scores from our guest surveys for maintenance and upkeep were always above expectations and everyone at the hotel appreciate and respect what I do there. They raised my pay as high as they could go because of the amount of work I was putting in. My boss even got me two $75 tickets to a Ring of Honor show since he was a wrestling fan like myself. I think it's safe to say that I definitely bounced back from Fitzgerald.

I guess that about wraps things up. It's currently two weeks until Christmas, so I've got that to look forward to. I'd apologize for the lengthy rant, but I think that's par for the course on my blog. Again, if you're new (or even if you're not), feel free to leave a comment, note, message, or whatever and let me know what brought you to my blog or if there's any questions, comments, or suggestions for things that I could discuss. I figure I've been away from this thing for a long time, why not be a bit more active. Anyways, that's all I got for now. Hope y'all are well; take care of yourself!

[our-smooty]

Wilting Roses

Fandom: Good Omens

Rating: Teen

Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley

Tags: Pining, Mutual Pining, Bad coping mechanisms, Drinking, Love Confessions

Summary: No one, if asked to describe Anthony J Crowley, would use the word patient. Flash maybe, flamboyant for sure, possibly even mischievous. But not patient. Crowley was the type of person to honk his horn one second after the light turned green, the type to roll his eyes when the person in front of him at the coffee shop dared to order something more complicated than the bare basics. He was always moving, swaying, fidgeting with something or other and anyone who knew him knew that.

No one, if asked to describe Anthony J Crowley, would use the word patient. Flash maybe, flamboyant for sure, possibly even mischievous. But not patient. Crowley was the type of person to honk his horn one second after the light turned green, the type to roll his eyes when the person in front of him at the coffee shop dared to order something more complicated than the bare basics. He was always moving, swaying, fidgeting with something or other and anyone who knew him knew that.

Not that there were many people who really knew him. The other demons in Hell knew him in the vaguest sense, like co-workers who’ve worked in different departments for 6000 years. Oh sure some of them felt they knew him, had him figured out, but that was all based on what Crowley wanted them to think. He submitted reports that were more lie than truth--which really, they should have expected as he was a demon--and carefully cultivated his persona as a confident, irreverent bastard and Hell fell for it.

No the only person who knew him well enough to speak on his actual personality was the angel. Not at first, in the beginning, but after a few thousand years one could say Aziraphale knew the demon better than anyone else and even he would have described Crowley as impatient. He was always speeding around London, trying to get where they were going as fast as possible. He watched Crowley, time and time again, drink his tea or coffee before it was cooled enough, burning his tongue. More than once Aziraphale had had to ask him to “settle down, dear boy, you look like you’re going to crawl out of your skin!”.

So he probably would have called Crowley patient either. But that wasn’t entirely true. In fact, Crowley may have been the most patient creature on God’s green earth. Because for 6000 years he’d been waiting, and pulling back, and reigning himself in. It was only natural that after all that time, things would spill over eventually, wasn’t it?

Crowley and Aziraphale were, as was usual for any given night of the week, sharing a bottle of wine in the backroom of the bookshop. They’d had dinner, and spent most of the morning going through the new books Adam had added to the shelves. Crowley had found a kids corner--that certainly hadn’t been there before-- in the back west bit of the shop and had spent hours teasing Aziraphale over the cutsie tiny chairs and shelves.

The wine was good and the company even better. Aziraphale wasn’t drunk yet, but Crowley was well on his way, his glass barely half empty before he was refilling it. There was a brittleness to the demon, a nervousness that was unwarranted based on the relaxed day they had had together that hadn’t been there when he was sober. It was only six months after The End that Wasn’t, so Aziraphale could understand some of the skittishness, but it was entirely out of character for the normally confident Crowley.

Aziraphale loved Crowley’s confidence. He loved Crowley, period. He just hadn’t admitted it to himself until quite recently. After the bombing in WWII he’d felt love so strong for the demon that it hadn’t been possible to ignore it anymore. But, honestly, he’d probably loved Crowley since the beginning, when he’d spoken to him and joked with him in a way nobody ever had. Which made it all the worse that they could never be together.

Because just thinking about what Hell would do to the demon if they found out was enough to put him off eating for weeks.

So it was understandable that Crowley’s discomfort was upsetting to Aziraphale. “You seem unsettled,” he observed, watching as Crowley filled his glass once again. “Is there something on your mind?”

“Noooo,” Crowley said, his voice going high-pitched as he lied. “Nothing at all, angel!”

“Are you sure?” Aziraphale cast a glance to the bottles on the table. “You’ve had quite a lot to drink.”

“S’not that much,” Crowley snarked, gesturing with the cup. Not a drop spilled, but Aziraphale knew that after a few more Crowley would forget to be so careful.

“Those are three of my best bottles from 1920.” Crowley leaned in and actually looked at the bottle, raising an eyebrow and nodding.

“You’ve got me there,” the demon admitted guiltily. “Ssstill doesn’t mean anythings wrong.”

The thing was, Aziraphale remembered a lot of other times that had been just like this. Times when Crowley would get skittish and cranky for no discernible reason. They were often followed by long periods of silence where he wouldn’t hear a peep from him. Sometimes for decades. Aziraphale wasn’t sure if he could handle not seeing the demon for 20 years, not after what they’d been through.

“Oh really, dear. I think I know you better than that!”  Crowley laughed hoarsely and Aziraphale was reminded of Nanny Ashtoreth, with her sharp wit and dry humour.

“Ssure you do, angel,” he rasped, voice rough with alcohol and something else Aziraphale couldn’t pin down. “Cause you’re sso clever. Nothing gets passt you, does it?”

Aziraphale might not be the quickest when it came to sarcasm, but Crowley was exceptionally drunk and very obvious. “I feel like you don’t really mean that, dear. Is there something I’ve missed?”

Crowley lept up unsteadily to pace the backroom floor. He only stopped when he nearly toppled one of the angels’ “to read” piles. “You can’t not know. Everything I’ve done… ssso many yearsss--”

Of course Aziraphale knew, wanted, and dreamed, but he never allowed himself to hope. “Whatever it is, I apologize for it, Crowley. You must know I’d never hurt you on purpose.”

But that just made Crowley more agitated. “Oh of coursess. Because the angel would never, could never, do anything not angelic!”

“You aren’t making any sense!” Aziraphale shouted, getting frustrated. “If you would just tell me--!”

“You sshould already know!”

Silence followed the ringing intensity of Crowley’s voice, only broken by the demon’s heavy breathing. Aziraphale gaped at the other; Crowley had never, not once in 6000 years, raised his voice at him. The demon was more the kind to get quiet when he was angry, to hiss and snap instead of yelling. Though apparently, Aziraphale had been wrong, and when pressed, Crowley could explode just like anyone else.

“You alwayss pull away and I--I accepted that ‘caussse I know I’m too--I’m too much,” Crowley hissed, his hands coming up and gripping at his own hair. “I thought I could--thingss could stay the sssssame but--”

It was all Aziraphale needed to hear, for him to finally admit he was being a coward and ignoring the obvious. Yes, he had hurt Crowley again and again and he knew it, had been lying to himself. Because an angel couldn’t possibly cause that much pain to a creature of God, even if he was a demon. That didn’t seem to matter because Aziraphale had been so busy denying his feelings and trying to be the perfect angel, that he’d been hurting Crowley for nearly 6000 years.

“I can’t--I tried and it’ss been ssssix months--but I can’t angel,” Croley sobbed into his own knees. Not 10 minutes ago they’d been chatting about visiting Adam, and the Them in Tadfield next month. Crowley had seemed tense but Aziraphale would have never guessed this deep of a hurt was hidden within his friend. Now he knew.

“I’m g-going. I wanted to tell you--if you need me. You can call and I’ll come but I’m going, Aziraphale.”

The angel’s breath caught in his chest. Where would Crowley go? America, or somewhere farther? The thought of Crowley floating through Alpha Century alone and lost was piercing.

“Crowley,” he started, his voice shaking, “ Oh Crowley I’ve been so cruel to you.” He stood and walked the few meters over to stand in front of the demon. He was still wearing his glasses, though he’d shed his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his button-down. Aziraphale was, as usual, still properly dressed, though his tie was loose. Now, he fiddled with that hanging fabric as he tried to compose himself.

Crowley, in the meantime, was already refuting the angel’s statement. “No, no it’sss nothing I don’t deserve. I jussst can’t…” Crowley shied away, physically leaning backward to create distance while his drunken legs stayed put.

“No, no. Dearest Crowley, will you please sober up so I know you will remember this?” Crowley shuddered and some of the bottles refilled, though not fully. Aziraphale knew Crowley was probably still intoxicated, but not to the point of blacking out. It would have to do.

“Don’t make this harder, angel,” Crowley rasped, clutching at his shirt just above his heart. “Let me go, please.”

And if Aziraphale was less greedy, he might have. But he always had been a bit of a bastard who couldn’t let go of the things that were his. “I’m so sorry. I’ve been so blind, so selfish. If you never forgive me I’ll understand but I want you to know that you are the most important thing in my life and that I will do everything in my power to make the last 6000 years up to you.”

He wasn’t sure how he expected Crowley to react, but complete silence was definitely not one of the options he’d imagined. A sharp come back, or tears even; Crowley was always prone to emotional reactions. But this quiet Crowley was new and very, very still. So Aziraphale decided it was his turn to take the first step.

Slowly, so the demon could see his every move and pull away if needed, the angel reached out. As carefully as he could he used soft fingers to unclench Crowley’s own from his shirt and hold them Aziraphale’s chest. With strength far beyond what his corporation would have had if he was human, he hauled Crowley up into a standing position. Crowley watched each movement with wide yellow eyes hidden behind tinted glass.

“I remember how, in the Garden, you spoke to me with such kindness, unlike anyone else ever had. And then, in Paris, and the Blitz, you saved me and I trampled on your feelings like… like they were nothing. You asked for the Holy water and I left you without even asking why you really wanted it, then when I did give it to you I accused you of moving too fast. Crowley, I’ve been stringing you along for millennia, abusing your kindness and taking.”

They were closer now, though Crowley was still looking away. Aziraphale used one hand to gently guide the demon’s chin to face him. Their eyes met and Aziraphale wasn’t surprised to see a distinct wetness in Crowley’s. “I’d like to give you something this time. I don’t know if it will make up for so many years but--”

“Stop talking and kiss me, angel,” Crowley snapped, though his tone was breathy. Though his nerves were frayed, Aziraphale couldn’t stand to make the other wait any longer, so he closed the gap between them, slanting his own lips over Crowley’s and swallowing the whimper that escaped the demon.

Incredibly soft, and a little cool, and--Azirphale’s mind was spinning as he tried to catalogue every minute detail about the scene. Crowley pulled his hands from the angel’s grasp and Aziraphale was about to pull away when they returned to clutch at his back. The demon continued to make small, wounded noises as Aziraphale sucked on his bottom lip. Crowley tasted like wine and something smokey. It was lovely and the angel couldn’t help himself. He just had to dip his tongue inside to get a better taste.

“Aziraphale…” Crowley moaned, his knees going weak which forced him to hold onto the angel for dear life. “Ngh.”

“Oh, terribly sorry dearest. Let's just move you to the settee, there you go,” Aziraphale fussed, practically dragging Crowley onto the furniture. Not that the demon was resisting, he was as boneless as his snake form suggested. He let himself be draped over one side of the settee, then arranged into position as Aziraphale got comfortable. The angel was seated as closely as possible, an arm draped over the demon’s knees with the other playing in his auburn hair.  

“Is that better?” he asked lowly, his lips close the Crowley’s ear. The demon shivered, goosebumps breaking out over his skin at their closeness. Aziraphale admired the reaction with a fond smile. “Lovely.”

Crowley flipped so his head fell under the angel’s chin, his legs interlocking with the others. “Is this a dream?”

A soft, slightly sad chuckle. “No dear, it isn’t. I’m very much here with you, and I’m not leaving.”

“S’a really real dream,” Crowley mumbled, drifting off. Aziraphale would argue with him about the realness of reality when he woke up. He may be more willing to hear the angel out after getting a good rest.

If Aziraphale had expected it to be easy to undo 6000 years of rejection and distance, he had been extremely niave. Crowley still had a tendency to distance himself, like a defence mechanism against a thousand past hurts. Aziraphale went out of his way to show his love explicitly, to care for and pamper him at every opportunity. But it didn’t seem to be enough.

Within just a few days of their mutual sharing of feelings, Crowley began to close himself off again, to hide behind snark and self-deprecating humour. He still let Aziraphale hold him, spoil him with praise and presents. But he never reached back, didn’t ask for or give affection unless Aziraphale moved first. Like he was still scared he’d be rejected. Which, considering the way Aziraphale had treated him in the past, was an extremely concern valid.

At first, the angel had thought Crowley wanted space. But then he’d noticed how content the demon seemed when Aziraphale put an arm around him on the street or tucked a strand of hair behind his ear when they were reading together. He definitely wanted the attention, but he seemed unable to reciprocate, even if sometimes the angel caught Crowley with a look like he wanted to so badly.

But how to bring it up? Aziraphale hadn’t wanted to just spring it on the other, but it wasn’t like Crowley was going to say anything. He was stuck. So as usual, when he had a problem he couldn’t solve, he turned to reading, fretting, and snacking. Which worked for a little bit before he remembered the way Crowley always kept at least a foot of space between them unless Aziraphale closed the gap. Then he was back at square one.

That pattern could have gone on for quite some time, had Crowley not begun to put even more distance between them. That one-foot gap became two, then three, and then it was almost like that night a week ago hadn’t happened. Crowley kept his distance much more firmly than in the beginning, to the point where Aziraphale could barely get close enough to hold hands without a mad dash. And when he did get the chance to hold the demon, he always made this tiny sound, a sad sigh that sounded like relief. That was when the angel knew he had to say something.

The time came one night while they were, for once, at Crowley’s flat having a glass of wine. Aziraphale had stopped by unannounced, though he knew that didn’t matter. Crowley invited him in with only token protests again as usual and Aziraphale had procured them a bottle of Bordeaux and two glasses.

“So to what do I owe the pleasure, Angel?”  he’d asked, draping himself over one of the austere chairs in his equally austere livingroom. Tension rippled through every part of his being, his aura a spikey, sickly grey. Aziraphale noted the lack of a sofa or any seating that would allow them to be close with a soft sigh.

“Just thought I’d pop in. I found this lovely vintage on one of the back shelves of my cellar and I knew you’d appreciate it.” Deciding to get to the bottom of this once and for all, Aziraphale walked around behind Crowley’s chair and leaned in close. “Do you remember that year, darling?”

Crowley squinted at the bottle, his shoulders mildly tensed from their suddenly close proximity. “1959, you spoil me, angel.”

“You deserve only the best, Crowley,” Aziraphale murmured, letting the bottle fall carefully into the demon’s lap.

“Hm?” Crowley asked as Aziraphale leaned down, nuzzling against firey hair. As usual, Crowley didn’t shy away from the touch, but there was that little sigh like he’d been waiting. Aziraphale tightened his hold around the demon’s shoulders guiltily. He really should be taking better care of him.

“I’ve missed you, dearest,” Aziraphale hummed, stretching over to kiss Crowley’s forehead. Crowley frowned in confusion and twisted around to look the angel in the eye.

“You saw me yesterday, not even 24 hours ago,” he scoffed, rolling his eyes. A few more soft kisses and Aziraphale pulled back, setting the bottle of wine on a side table. He knew he was making Crowley uncomfortable; the demon never did like not knowing what was about to happen. Better to get things done quickly, and avoid any undue stress.

“I did, but I always miss you when you’re away from me. Besides, you know that isn’t what I meant.” Crowley’s face furrowed in confusion, so maybe he didn’t. “You’ve been--Am I overwhelming you, Crowley? It’s just you’ve been distant…”

“No!” Crowley interjected, immediately twisting around to fully face Aziraphale. “No, no, angel it’s not that, I swear.”

Aziraphale let out a relieved sigh of his own. “Oh good, I was quite worried.” He rewarded Crowley’s honesty with a soft kiss on the lips. “Will you tell me what the problem really is? I hate that you--I want you to be comfortable with me.”

Crowley tried to lean into the kiss, encouraging it to turn into something needier. But Aziraphale held firm, pulling back and waiting for Crowley to answer. It was harder than expected--once he started kissing Crowley it was nearly impossible to stop--but he managed for the greater good of their relationship.

Initially, Crowley mumbled his answer so badly Aziraphale couldn’t understand a word of it. With a raised eyebrow and a gentle squeeze around the shoulders, he encouraged the demon to try again. “I didn’t--I don’t want to move to fast for you. I know I’m a lot and that you don’t really... Well, I know you don’t want me all over you all the time so I thought it’d be better like this.”

Aziraphale was shocked; where had Crowley gotten that idea? You go too fast for me. Oh well, maybe this was the angel’s fault, even if he’d never meant for it to happen.

“Love, that was over 40 years ago. And I should have never--well the blame is entirely on me for this it would seem.” With cautious movements, Aziraphale walked around to stand in front of the chair, facing Crowley head-on. “I should apologize for not making my intentions clear, for not just bloody talking about it!.”

Crowley continued to stare at the floor as Aziraphale continued. “You do not go too fast for me Crowley. Well, you do when you’re driving but not in that other way.” Bending down to rest his palms on Crowley’s knees, Aziraphale made sure to catch his gaze. “I was scared of what Heaven and Hell might do, but not anymore. We don’t have to be afraid anymore, dearest.”

But Crowley was shaking his head, his golden eyes darting away and around the room. “I don’t know how! So many years, sso many times you said--Not that I blame you--”

“Love, you’ve been so patient,” Aziraphale praised, his smile cutting off the other’s tirade. He took one of his hands and used it to cup Crowley’s cheek, cradling it reverently. “You deserve to get what you’ve been wanting all these years. I want to give that to you.”

Cautiously, his eyes still averted, Crowley reached out and placed his hand on Aziraphale’s cheek, mirroring the angel’s position. It was the first time the demon had touched him since that initial night. “This’s stupid, I’m sstupid!” Aziraphale noticed his lover’s eyes were damp, and his lip caught between sharp teeth. Obviously, Crowley’s distress was more intense than he’s realized.

“You’re lovely, and so, so good,” he whispered, nuzzling against the hand on his cheek. “I want to spend every day for all eternity holding you and having you hold me.”

Crowley’s hand was trembling, but he didn’t remove it. He actually seemed to lean closer towards Aziraphale’s warmth. “M’still…” The angel let him struggle for a second before making a suggestion.

“Worried, relieved, scared?” he offered, unsurprised by Crowley’s shocked glance. “Me too love. I’m absolutely petrified.”

That got Crowley to laugh a little as he finally--finalyl!--brought his other hand up to pull the angel into a sweet embrace. Aziraphale couldn’t have felt more proud of his brave demon. Crowley always had been one to take risks, which just showed how much he cared for his relationship with Aziraphale. He’s been so cautious, so gentle, so patient for 6000 long years.

“Just in case I haven’t been clear enough,” Aziraphale muttered into Crowley’s hair, “you can touch me whenever you like and I will always enjoy it darling.”

“Ngk,” Crowley said, burrowing his face into the lapels of the angel’s coat so the angel couldn’t see his blush. “Don’t jusst say that!”

Aziraphale laughed, high and bright and he switched to holding his demon around the waist. He could feel the despair and isolation bleeding from Crowley’s aura, replaced with contentment and peace. Not to mention the elation the angel felt at having Crowley reciprocate his affections. The plants in the next room over began to bloom and grow at a rate never before seen on earth.

“You know I can’t lie to you Crowley.” That just made the demon squirm more. Impulsively, Aziraphale stood up and put his knees beside Crowley’s, sitting in his lover’s lap. Crowley grunted in surprise but kept his hold on Aziraphale’s shoulders. “I’m not too heavy, am I?”

“You’re perfect, Aziraphale,” Crowley answered, his voice muffled by layers of clothing. Aziraphale settled in more, getting comfortable for what he hoped would turn into a nice, long cuddle. The red wine he’d brought over could sit out for a while without any harm. And Crowley seemed to agree because he sighed, this time with happiness. It would be nice, for once in 6000 years, to have nothing to do other than enjoy each other's company.

And when they did go to visit Tadfield, if, in the middle of a tea party consisting of a variety of beings and types of people, Crowley took Azirapahle’s hand in his as easy as breathing? Well, Aziraphale could blame his misty-eyed smile on the absolutely delicious biscuits and jam.