#honestly i stopped reading warriors halfway through series 7 and never read series 6 (since its like a prologue series that takes place

[makedamnsvre]

what's going on with Moonpaw the warrior cat. its an incest kitty thats a calico but its not (according to the makers) cuz has black head?? i dont go there at all but im so curious

the erins (the writing team behind the author name erin hunter) are coming out with the 9th warriors series, (each series has 6 books)

at first the teaser only said this about the newest protagonist:

In the midst of the chaos, Moonpaw, an apprentice struggling to understand the mysterious voice in her head, thinks that she might be having visions. But the voice becomes increasingly sinister, and Moonpaw wonders if it’s a sign of darkness on the horizon.

and im not sure where or how but just from this and the other 2 paragraphs of teaser, people came up with turning the moonpool (small pool of water used as a sacred site to contact starclan (cat heaven)) into a . sentient? being. of sorts. that they are shipping with moonpaw. and mind you at the moment we only had those 2 sentences about moonpaw so it was mostly just people coming up with their own ideas based off of the limited info from the teaser and building off of other peoples ideas, like a community oc. people were also talking abt what they hope the next series does/doesnt do with moonpaw. like hoping that she isnt yet another boring gray cat, wondering what she would look like, making their own designs for what they think would be cool/what they would hope she looks like, hoping that the writers dont make her lame, brainstorming who her parents will be, etcetcetc

and then the warriors team released some stuff about moonpaw including this character sheet

and a few paragraphs introducing her a little bit, explaining her name, and teasing a bit of the upcoming plot to do with her.

but they also say that "Moonpaw is a chimera cat: a cat who, due to a rare genetic quirk, has different colored fur on each side of her face, divided by a nearly straight line." which irritated a bunch of people because in cat genetics, a split half black/half orange face is common in normal non-chimera tortoiseshell and calico cats, but its just because its widely believed misinformation and the authors fell for the misinfo on that because they dont really know a lot abt cats or cat genetics or dont care (even though they write books about cats??) so people are disappointed that they introduced their first canon chimera character but then gave her a very typical design that isnt limited to chimera cats since normal non-chimeras can have those exact markings

and the incest part is just that there are So Many warrior cat characters and the books have gone on for many many many MANY generations in the clans of only so many cats that rarely ever add new cats to the gene pool, and they barely keep track of family trees, so this is a mistake that they make literally constantly. most of the characters are related at this point, but people are especially upset about moonpaw because shes a POV character and not just some background nobody who dies offscreen, and there were many different characters that arent related that they could have used to be her parents instead

[not-a-space-alien]

Aziraphale’s Legion, Part 7: The Flesh is Weak

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12

Series masterpost

On AO3

“Lord Aziraphale, Oryss wants to talk to you.”

“Thank you, Botis.”

Aziraphale sighed as he removed himself from his desk, leaving a napping Crowley alone on the couch behind him.  Botis hadn’t specified where Oryss was, but he could guess.

As he passed the hall closet, his ears prickled to sounds coming from inside.  Alarmed, he ripped it open.

A warrior angel stood awkwardly hunched over inside the closet, tangled in garments with a partially undressed demon under him.

“You sure are a grabby group,” said Aziraphale stormily, yanking the demon out and pulling her bra strap back up.  “Aren’t you?  Do I have to be around all the time to ensure you don’t force yourself on my demons?  What did I just finish explaining to you all?  Well, what do you have to say for yourself?”

“You lot are all pair bonding!” said the angel, pushing the coat hangers bumping his head out of the way. “Don’t see why it’s suddenly not allowed when it’s me.  I’m making an effort for her and everything.”

The demon tugged on his sleeve.  “Lord Aziraphale, I initiated this, not him.”

Aziraphale looked from the demon to the angel and back again, turning red.  “Oh.  Ah.  I see.”

The demon slunk back into the closet.  Aziraphale, very red indeed, pushed it shut.  He did his best to forget what he had seen as he came down the stairs.

“Good morning, Master!” said a demon to him when he came into sight.

“I hope you don’t need a jacket,” Aziraphale said, dodging her.

He found Oryss in the kitchen as predicted.  There were sheets and sheets of chocolate chip biscuits covering every flat surface*, and another was emerging from the oven.

*and some curved ones as well.

“Master!” said Oryss, taking her oven mitts off and giving a small bow.  “Thank you for coming down.”

“What’s all this?” said Aziraphale, sampling a biscuit off the nearest tray.

“I decided to bake for everyone,” she said.  She was panting, as though she had been literally running around the kitchenette, and she waved the oven mitts.  “Er, you know, as a treat for everyone.  A gesture of good will.”

“I think it’s marvelous,” said Aziraphale.  “What was it you needed me for?”

“Er….”  She shuffled her feet.  “I wanted to take some up to the angels on the roof….”

“And you were afraid to go up by yourself.”

She nodded. Aziraphale patted her shoulder. “I’ll go with you.  I’m sure they’ll love them.”

He followed behind Oryss on the fire escape as she took a tray up, steadying her with a hand since she couldn’t hold the railing.  She froze when they came out onto the roof and Michael’s eyes fell on her.

“Go ahead,” Aziraphale prodded.

“Er,” she said, stiff as a board.  “Sirs!”

When she still did not continue, Aziraphale sighed and drew her forward by the arm.  “Oryss has brought something for you all.”

She held the tray out. Michael looked at it blearily. Angelo furrowed his brow.  The other angels had blank expressions.

Finally, Victoria let out an exasperated sigh.  She drew forwards, snatched a biscuit off the tray, and ate it with cartoonishly loud sounds of enjoyment.  When still no one else came forwards, she glared at them and gestured angrily for them to come up.

They gathered around Oryss as though she were feeding a great flock of pigeons, and her eyes lit up with happiness as a few of them admitted that they were good and thanked her.  As soon as the tray was empty, she bowed and scuttled away down the fire escape.

“I think they liked them…” she said, sounding unsure but proud.

“I think they did,” said Aziraphale.  “That’s the way to someone’s heart, straight through their stomach.”

They came downstairs to find that the demons had already begun to attack the remaining batches in the kitchen.  And there was one angel among that lot, his hair mussed up and with a scarf from the back of Aziraphale’s closet around his neck, sitting next to a demon covered in hickeys who was scarfing the biscuits down at an alarming rate.  Adam was frantically dragging Dog away from the scene, trying to keep him from eating the bits that hit the floor, admonishing him about how they were poisonous to him.  Dog did not seem to care and looked like he would happily die if it meant he could lick the floor unhindered.

Maltha and Beth were there, too.  Maltha had apparently never eaten a biscuit before, which Beth was attempting to remedy. Poor Maltha, of course, found this very confusing.

“What did you say these were called again?” she said, breaking one apart in her hands.

“Cookies,” said Beth.

The angel with the scarf around his neck broke in, “They’re biscuits.”

Maltha furrowed her brow. “I thought biscuits were the sort of doughy things you ate with breakfast.”

“They are,” said Beth, patting her arm.  “You’ve got it right.”

“You’re thinking of scones,” said the angel.

“Scones?” said Maltha. “I’ve never eaten a scone before, either.”

“You have,” said Beth. “At that café in New York?  They called it a doughnut, though.  I’m not sure why.”

“A biscuit is what you eat with gravy on it,” Maltha elaborated.  “That’s what we had when we were in Kentucky.”

“Gravy?  On a biscuit?” said the angel, wrinkling his nose.

Maltha looked down at the pastry in her hand.  “It sounded more appetizing in America.”

“It’s a cookie,” insisted Beth.

“Cookies are the wafers you have with coffee!” interjected a demon nearby.

“I’m told you,” the angel said stubbornly.  “I’m not stupid.”

“No you’re not,” said the demon sitting on his lap.  “Tell them, babe.”

More and more people in the room got drawn into the argument.  Maltha seemed to lose interest in what the pastries were called halfway through in favor of grabbing handfuls of them while everyone else was distracted.

Aziraphale figured he had better grab one for Crowley now before they were all gone.  But he ended up eating it on the way up, and Crowley never knew there were any biscuits because there were none left by the time he woke up from his nap.

“Aziraphale. Aziraphale.  Aziraphale!”

Aziraphale looked up from the book he had been reading.  He had been trying to read this book for the last four days, and each time he had never gotten further than half a page.  He thought that maybe if he just started ignoring people when they called his name, he could finally make some progress, but he should have guessed it wouldn’t be that easy.

He sighed and put the book down, only to see Beth hovering over his desk, looking frantic.

“What is it, Beth?”

“We…uh…have a situation.”

“What’s happening?”

“Michael.”

That did not actually explain what was happening, but it conveyed the urgency well enough. Aziraphale followed her through the hallway into the flat.  She led him to the loo.  Angelo was defending the door, trying to scare away a few demons that had gathered nearby. It was not working because Angelo was not the least bit scary, but he was making a valiant effort.

“Beth, make them go away,” the small angel whined.  Intense sobbing could be heard coming from the bathroom door behind him, which was cracked open slightly.

“All right, Angelo,” snapped Beth.  “Just relax.” She turned to the demons.  “Could you please give us some privacy for a few minutes?”

The hallway cleared instantly.  Beth elbowed Angelo aside and tapped on the bathroom door.  “Michael?  Aziraphale is here.  Is that okay? Can I open the door?”

“Not him,” Michael sobbed.  “I don’t want him to see.”

“Michael, it’s okay!” Beth said, exasperated.  “You’re making a bigger deal out of this than it really is.”

“I don’t want any of the angels to see this,” he cried.

“Michael, can I open the door?”

“Don’t let Aziraphale see. This is humiliating.  Don’t let him see.”

“Michael, I promise you Aziraphale does not care,” said Beth.  

“What on Earth is happening?” said Aziraphale, bewildered.

“I’m coming in,” said Beth, pushing the door open before Michael could complain further.

When it swung open, Aziraphale saw the archangel standing in the bathtub, leaning against the wall.  The entire front of his trousers was soaked with blood, and he had a saturated rag pressed to his groin.

“Oh no,” said Aziraphale, coming in behind her.  “Where are you hurt?”

“Erm, Aziraphale…” said Beth.

“What happened?” he demanded.

“It’s not…”

When Aziraphale looked down and saw the sanitary pads spilled on the floor, it clicked what was actually happening.  “Oh. Ohhhh…”

“I can’t make it stop,” sobbed Michael.  “I can always make it stop, but now I can’t.  I’m losing control of my corporation.  Please don’t tell my warriors.  Aziraphale, promise you don’t think less of me now.”

“Michael, it’s okay,” said Beth.

“They won’t respect me if they find out I can’t even control my own corporation,” Michael continued, ignoring her. “What kind of warrior bleeds like this?”

Angelo came in and pulled the door shut behind him.  “We got Beth because it seemed like she might know what to do, and Michael refused to let any of his warriors find out what was happening.  They’re still on the roof wondering why he ran off so suddenly.”

“No one ever showed him how to put a tampon in,” said Beth.  “Aziraphale, don’t they tell you these things when they give you human bodies?”

“I…”  Aziraphale had never been in a body that menstruated, so he honestly didn’t know.  When he had gotten his own body, he had mostly been left to his own devices to figure everything out, so he imagined they might not have done much in the way of education for anyone else either.

“Why can’t I make it stop?” sniffled Michael.  “I can always make it stop.  Why can’t I…?”

“Michael,” said Aziraphale, “you’re saying that you usually just use a miracle to stop the bleeding? But for some reason it’s not working now?”

Michael hung his head miserably. “I-it started a few days ago, and I felt worse than normal but I didn’t think much of it and just used a miracle like usual, and then just now it all started coming out at once.”

“Ah…” said Aziraphale awkwardly.  “Okay.”

Two angels and a human woman stood around the bleeding archangel trying to brainstorm how to help him.

“Michael, what do your warriors usually do?” said Aziraphale.  “The ones who have the same anatomy.”

“I don’t think any of them do,” said Michael.

“What? None of them? There are fourteen of them.”

Michael adjusted the rag. “I-I mean, I don’t think any of them menstruate.  When they were incorporated, they made sure to give them ones that didn’t menstruate to avoid this.”

“Erm…” said Aziraphale, “then why did they not do the same for you?”

Michael looked at him bitterly.

“Michael?”

“I wasn’t supposed to have a corporation, okay?” he said hysterically.  “It was a mistake that they gave me one at all.  Something got mixed up, but I just held onto it.  If I tried to exchange it, Gabriel and Camael would have made them just take it away from me and not replace it, and then I wouldn’t be able to come down to Earth at all.”

Angelo glared at Aziraphale, as though angry at him for making Michael reveal that information. “Don’t worry about that, Michael. Let’s just focus on fixing the problem.”

Aziraphale realized exactly how useless he had been compared to Beth until this point and resolved to try and make things better instead of worse.  “All right, don’t worry, Michael, we’ll figure something out.  What do you need?”

Michael sniffled.  “I need to figure out how to get the miracle to work.  It’s not working.”

Aziraphale could not imagine what could cause someone to lose control of their own corporation besides a binding sigil that restricted powers. And he was sure they would have noticed if something like that had happened.

If Michael had never meant to be incorporated, maybe his body simply couldn’t take the strain of holding him?  He had never heard of anything like that before, but Michael’s aura was particularly enormous.  If that were the case, there probably wasn’t anything anyone could do about it.

But it wasn’t like there was any difference between Michael’s body and, say, Maltha’s, who had the same aura strength and presumably had never had a problem like this. At least as far as he could tell. So what else was there?  ...Unless Michael was sick somehow?

“Maybe we can see if Maltha can help?” he suggested.  “She’s a healer.”

Michael drew back, panic flaring.  “You will certainly not tell her about this!”

“And you’re sure none of your warriors can help?” Beth pressed.

“I can’t let any of the angels see this,” Michael wept.  “I have an image to maintain.  They won’t respect me anymore if they see me like this.”

“All right,” said Beth. “Aziraphale, can we get one of your demons to help?”

“I can’t let a demon help me,” Michael exclaimed.

“Michael, you keep insisting you can’t let any of your angels see this.  That means if you want help you have to get it from a demon.”

“Can’t you just help me?”

Beth pulled at her hair. “I can’t do miracles. What exactly is it you want me to help you with?”

Michael pressed the rag to himself, looking red and chastised.

Beth turned around and pulled Aziraphale aside.  “Aziraphale, I, um…  Could we get one of the demons who have the same…type of body as Michael to help us out?  After what happened with Maltha I didn’t want to make any assumptions and er…”

“What happened with Maltha?”

Beth grew red.  “Never mind that, um….  I think…Well, you could ask...Botis?  I mean, it’s hard to tell under the armor…”

“Oh,” said Aziraphale.  “Oh, yes, good thinking.  Ah…All right. I’ll go see if I can find him.”

Aziraphale turned around and walked out of the flat.  He almost smacked into Victoria in the hallway.

“Aziraphale,” said Victoria. “Did you see where Michael went? He and Angelo ran downstairs, and I thought I saw blood.”

“Ah!” said Aziraphale. “Ah, no, everything’s fine. Don’t worry about Michael.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure, sure,” said Aziraphale, trying to corral her away from the bathroom and out of the flat.  

He brushed past her to try and mount the stairs, but Oryss was coming up them.

“Oryss!” said Aziraphale, changing course.  “Oryss, dear girl, I need to ask you something.”

“What is it, lord?”

Aziraphale put his hands on her shoulders.  “Do you…Well, do you…um…”

She looked at him strangely, waiting for him to stop fumbling.  When he finally succeeded in asking his question, she answered unsurely, “Well, I used to, but I usually turn it off. It’s quite annoying.”

“Perfect! That’s perfect!” said Aziraphale grabbing her arm and dragging her up the stairs. “I need your help with something.”

Victoria was still standing in the junction between the bookshop and the flat, eyeing Aziraphale skeptically as he took Oryss past her.  When Aziraphale passed with no acknowledgement of the warrior, Oryss offered a quiet “excuse me.”

The bathroom door was closed again, Angelo’s voice drifting out from inside with Beth hanging around outside.  Aziraphale came up and pushed Oryss towards Beth.  “All right, Oryss, we need your expertise.”

“My what?”

“Oryss,” said Beth. “Can you help Michael figure out how to stop menstruating?”

“Can I what?” said Oryss, alarmed.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be right here.”

“Please?” said Beth. “I’m really at a loss here.”

Oryss grimaced and allowed Beth to convince her to come into the bathroom.

Aziraphale figured that out of all of them, he probably had the fewest qualifications to help, and so hung around in the back while Beth, Oryss, and Angelo worked together.  He had to stop Victoria from pestering them multiple times, and he eventually took her back up to the roof in the hopes that she’d stay up there and leave them alone.

When he came back down, he saw Michael in the hallway, dressed and cleaned, holding Beth’s hand with his right and Oryss’s with his left.

“Lord,” said Oryss. “May I have permission to go to the store with Beth and Michael?”

“Er, sure,” said Aziraphale. “Whatever you need.”

He watched the two lead Michael, who was much quieter now, out the front of the bookshop.  

When he turned back around, Victoria was staring at him with narrowed eyes.  He returned her gaze unsurely.

“Listen, Aziraphale,” she said sternly.  “I don’t know what’s going on, but I saw you get Michael help from a demon instead of an angel.”

“I…” said Aziraphale, wringing his hands.

“Just listen.  I know you value Earth above Heaven. No, don’t try to deny it, I see you opening your mouth to do it, but it’s just going to be lies. I can accept that.  I can accept that you would rather save the Earth than see it destroyed.  I would be lying if I said I necessarily wanted the Earth to be destroyed myself. But please remember what Michael’s function is.  He is the Sword of Heaven.  That’s what he does. That’s always been his purpose. The war.  That’s who he is.  He needs it. And I could see you trying to convince him the Earth was worth saving to try and put the war off.  Trying the same thing you did to that archdemon.”

“Listen here,” said Aziraphale, indignant.

“No, you listen.  I just wanted to tell you: I won’t let you. Michael doesn’t need you manipulating him for your own agenda.  He has enough to deal with when the other archangels do that.  He doesn’t need one of his only friends trying it, too.”

“The archangels?”

She shook her head. “Never mind them.  Just remember what I said.  I won’t let you hurt him, do you understand?”

“Of course…” said Aziraphale, feeling helpless.

“So you’d do well to simply keep your demons away from him.  Got it?”

“Er…” said Aziraphale. “Well, sometimes it can’t really be helped.”

Victoria gave him a fiery gaze.  He squirmed under it.

“This whole arrangement is unnatural,” she pressed.  “Nothing but trouble will come of it.  I maintain my position that it should be disbanded as soon as possible.”

“What did you say?” said Crowley, padding into the room, sounding angry.

Victoria’s gaze widened on him, as though she hadn’t realized he could be listening.

“What arrangement is unnatural?” he pressed.  “Go on. Say it.”

“You know what I mean, Crowley,” she said.

“Angels and demons together.”

“You know I didn’t mean it like that.”

“You just meant it’s not natural for them to be cooperating instead of fighting.”

Victoria grimaced.

“Victoria, it’s obvious what your feelings have been about this from the very beginning.  You don’t do a good job hiding them.  If you keep doing this, it’s only going to exacerbate the tension between everyone here.  Maybe the world is changing and this is the way it is now.  Why can’t you accept that?”

Victoria did not respond.

“Victoria?”

“It’s not fair,” she burst out.  “You think this is fair?  The war is still going to happen. One way or another, it’s going to happen as long as we’re on different sides.  You seem to be willfully ignoring the ineffable Almighty looming over us to whom we might as well be chess pieces.  It’s going to happen.  This will break down and we’ll be at each other’s throats like we were never under one roof peacefully.  And I’ll have to kill them.  And you all won’t even have the decency to let me hate them to protect myself from that.”

“Victoria…” said Crowley.

Victoria wiped her eye.  “I’m just saying we shouldn’t get too comfortable,” she continued, quieter.  “There is still an order to things, whether we like it or not. It’s not up to us.  We’re still on different sides.”

“Victoria,” said Crowley. “Have you learned nothing?  Has it still not occurred to you?”

“What?”

“We’ve made our own side. Here, in the shop.”

“There is no third side,” Victoria yelled.  “As much as I want to believe that, it’s not going to happen.”

“Vic—”

“No, just stop it, you tempter.”  She was shaking. “I’ve never actually wanted anything before in my life enough to be tempted by it.  Is this what it feels like? Have you finally found something with which to corrupt me, serpent?”

Crowley shrank back.

She steadied herself. “I’m sorry.  This is just…a bit too much for me.  I…Let me know when Michael’s back, okay?”

She removed herself from the room before they could answer.

“Bloody Hell,” said Crowley. “What is happening?”

“I don’t know,” Aziraphale said.  “But I don’t have a good feeling about it.”