#if you can’t tell i really really really want to write more fic about s1 incorporating that stuff and instead i’m. making tumblr posts

[un-pearable]

at all times fighting the urge to rewatch s1

[reiding-writing]

congrats on 1000 followers!! I love your fics sm <333

could I request early seasons!spencer x bau!reader with prompts 12&19 from the general dialogue list?

maybe some inexperienced!reader and fluff??

A MUTUAL SECRET [CLIMACTERIC]

12. “You can’t tell anyone. Seriously. Even them.”

19. “I think about you all the time.”

WARNINGS: N/A

s1!spencer reid x gn!reader || fluff || 1.0k || climacteric event!!

a/n: tyy <333 this was so cute to write man 😭

main masterlist!! ⋆｡°✩ event masterlist!!

Oh to think that you’d managed to worm your way into a relationship with Spencer Reid.

More like he’d wormed himself into a relationship with you.

First it was him making an extra coffee and sitting it on your desk. Then it was waiting for you before leaving the office so you could get the metro together. Then it was inviting you over for movie nights and getting tickets for the philharmonic orchestra.

And then all of a sudden you were going out for dinner and he’d bought you flowers and then you were kissing under your porch canopy.

It was a lot.

It was the first real relationship you’d ever had. The first serious relationship. A relationship that involved full transparency and trust and vulnerability that you’d never shared with somebody before.

“Can we uh, talk for a second?” You dump your go-bag on your hotel bed, watching as he does the same for his own. You’d managed to pair up pretty inconspicuously, the hotels were usually doubled up for simplicity reasons, and you and Spencer being so close even before you got together allowed you to snatch him as your roommate with no suspicion from any of your teammates.

“Yeah, are- are you alright?” Spencer furrows his eyebrows in concern, walking around his bed towards yours, rubbing his hand deftly over your left bicep. “Is something wrong?”

“No no it’s nothing like that,” You shake your head quickly, bringing up your right hand to rest on the curve of his neck. “I just wanted to speak about something with you,”

“Okay…” He gives you a small nod, offering no resistance as you guide him to sit on the edge of the bed with you, your hands sliding down his arms to hold his.

“So,” You give his hands a soft squeeze as you start, trying to shatter the growing anxiety in his irises before it can wash over his entire face. “I really like you Spencer, and these last few months have arguably been the best of my life, even with all the crazy shit we go through at work,”

You laugh toward the end of your sentence, and it’s contagious enough for a smile to break out onto his face as well, but that small well of anxiousness still lingered behind his gaze, anticipating the turn of the conversation. “But..?”

“But nothing,” You let go of one of his hands to cup the side of his face, your thumb rubbing over his cheek. “I look forward to where this relationship is headed,”

“Okay- uh- me too…” He nods slowly against your palm, bringing his hand up to cover your own. “So, what is this about then..?”

“I know we’re profilers, and no one really listens to the ‘don’t profile your team’ rule, but uh, I’m not sure that I’m ready to them that were… together yet,”

“Oh- right yeah- that’s- that’s it? That’s all?” You can see his eyes visibly relax at your confession, like he’s physically relived it’s not something worse.

“You’re not- upset? Angry?”

“Why would I be?” He turns his head further into your hand. “Our relationship is about me and you, not the team,” He laughs softly against your palm, one that you reciprocate with a soft smile.

“Good- good okay…” You laugh softly with a short nod. “I’ve been uh thinking about how to bring it up to you, a lot, I think about you a lot in general though, like most of the time actually—”

“I think about you all the time,” Spencer’s confession cuts off your own, and you both stare at each other blankly for a few seconds before bursting into a shared fit of quiet giggles.

It was like the two of you were a pair of teenagers in your first ever relationship. To be fair it was your first ever relationship. For the both of you.

“Seriously though—” Once your giggles subsided you tugged him closer to you, resting your foreheads together. “You can’t tell anyone, seriously, even them okay? Not until we’ve got this properly figured out,”

“Sounds good to me,” he nods against you gently, bumping your noses together. “I still get to keep you either way,”

“I’m all yours Doc,” You link your arms around his neck, leaning forward like you’re going in for a kiss and swerving at the last second to bury your head into his shoulder and pull him down until you’re both laying flat across the mattress of your twin-sized hotel bed.

“I think this bed is a little small to support the both of us-” Spencer laughs as he turns onto his side, anchoring his hand over your waist. “why don’t we—”

“—push them together?”

“Push them together?”

The two of you sound like synched metronomes with how perfectly you match suggestions, and it’s enough to send you both into another fit of giggles as you nod enthusiastically at your shared idea.

“Okay, you get this one and i’ll get the other one,” Spencer sits up with pointed fingers as he lays out your plan, and the giggling for continues right up until you’re both tucked up under the sheets like two desperately in love peas in a pod.

[mikkaeus]

house md hilson fic rec — infidelity trope

aka MY FAVE!

Other house rec lists: short fics | long fics | episode tags | postcanon

Four Blocks South of Eden by bethfrish (3k)

If you wanted paradise, you're a little off. I loved the tentative, slightly off-kilter feeling of this. Bang on characterisation, dialogue, and use of 2nd person POV (House). Set in s1 — Wilson's marriage is falling apart, and it leads to a night that could be the start of something new.

Blow the Candles Out by bethfrish (5k) Another year older, another year wiser, another divorce lurking just around the corner. So good!!! Wilson celebrates his birthday amongst the detritus of his marriage. The prose is really exceptional here. House's dialogue is also especially well done. It's a fun read that holds up well on a re-read.

Experimentation by DictionaryWrites (3k) If Wilson spending Christmas at House's in season 2 had gone a bit differently. Very well-written and in character. Got all my favourite things about an infidelity fic - the internal conflict, the desperate want, and them eventually falling into each other with all the inevitability of a coin vortex charity box.

midnight rain by GoldStarGrl (5k) Wilson can't possibly know the pain. But he wants to. I am vibrating!!! Set precanon, in the aftermath of the infarction. Infidelity, spanking, hello??? Hot, vivid, excellent characterisation, excellent writing etc etc. A+ no notes.

Commonplace and True by celestialskiff (11k) It would be a simple story--House and Wilson meet at a medical conference, have sex, and enjoy each other's company--but nothing is ever easy, or simple. Explores Wilson's relationship with House, with women, and with himself. House and Wilson throughout the years — with the version of canon where Wilson has cheated on every wife and girlfriend with House. When I tell you I am FROTHING!!! Pining while fucking?? The way it’s never the right time?? The greed of wanting to have your cake and eat it too? (That one’s specifically for Wilson, our beloved three-wives guy.) The vibes are immaculate. The prose is elegant verging on poetic. I’m eating this fic whole and it will be on my mind always. It is THE hilson fic for me. It is criminal that this fic has been up since 2012 and it only has 200 kudos. Go read it immediately & give the author some love.

hearts turn red by ictus (14k) In my head this is the counterpoint to the above fic. When I found it after reading that one it really was a holy shit two fucking cakes?? moment. The delicious infidelity vibes are similar, but the vibes of the writing are pretty different -- whereas the above fic has a more quiet, subdued atmosphere, this one has more snappy prose and it’s more light-hearted with funny moments as well as emotional ones. It’s not just the infidelity theme that makes me crazy about both of them though; it’s how they play on the great tragedy of House and Wilson. In the author’s own words: In a way they do feel a little bit doomed to never quite be on the same page with each other until the very end of the series and by then it's too late. Of course, in these fics, they’re rescued earlier than the end, but the wretched vibes remain. Also, I’m obsessed with this line: By Wilson’s read, House is somehow simultaneously joking and sincere: Schrödinger’s sexual advance. That is the entire fucking show. 

Howler Tone by baffledbear (25k) The calls always happen late at night, and they're extremely sporadic, with weeks, sometimes months bridging between them. They talk on the phone otherwise, of course; about patients, or dinner plans, or carpooling. Typical stuff. But the calls that always end a certain way always start a certain way. Wilson is so repressed but so attracted to House. House is taking as much as he can get while still remaining in relative safety. Together they push a platonic relationship to the absolute limits of plausible deniability. Overall totally realistic within the canon of the show — the natural step up from the gay chicken already depicted. It’s just such a perfect scenario for them! That combined with silky smooth prose, faithful characterisation and accurate dialogue makes this fic is a definite hilson favourite and also a hilson-thesis fic.

Twenty Years of Stealing My Food by hwshipper (100k) A backstory taking place over twenty years, from how House and Wilson met all the way to canon. A reimagining of their fucked up, magnetic relationship, with a straightforward writing style. They get together nearly as soon as they meet and maintain a steady open relationship whilst cheating on their various girlfriends and wives throughout the years.

[fickleminder]

So I may have accidentally created a whole new OM universe in my head based off of the years start coming. Like it’s been over a year (a year and a half? Maybe longer?) since the first time I read it and it replaced game canon for me. Everything that happens after s1 is now TYSCATDSC-coded in my brain. Maybe not that exact sequence, but I now have an offshoot plot inspired by your fic, which involves MC getting kidnapped and tortured by witch hunters after Lilith’s return, with two different endings—one where MC saves themselves and teleports back to the Devildom to escape, and another where they just die and the brothers find out later.

Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for writing that masterpiece. It’s still one of the only fics I regularly return to, and it’s so powerful it rewired my brain and made me forget actual canon events. I am now in the process of coming up with NB headcanons if it happened after the events of TYSCATDSC.

Anon— Anon you can’t just tell me this and end it there, I need to know more holy shit—

I really love the angst potential in the offshoot plot!! Poor MC getting kidnapped (aka I’m a sucker for MC whump) and both endings are equally satisfying!! Idk where Satan and the angels are in all this but ooh I’d love to read more if you ever write this out one day 🤩🤩🤩

Thank YOU for sharing your ideas with me!! I’m so honored (and mindblown tbh) that my little fic?? inspired a whole damn universe in your head?? and gave you TYSCATDSC-tinted glasses?? Hot damn, you took the concept and ran with it and I am in LOVE with the results!!

I’d love to know more about the NB related stuff too; that’s a twist I’ve never thought about but I’m excited to see where you’ll take it!! Thank you again for this ask, and I hope you have lots of fun playing with this AU 💕

[writingwhilecaffeinated]

The new chapter of Unspooled Thread was SO GOOD that I couldn't stop myself from rereading it!


The changes you are making to this story are so well done that make all the plot so interesting and compelling! ( I’ve to confess that a few days ago I planned of rewatch bridgerton s1 but I end up rereading the available chapters of your story, ngl I found myself more engaged with it!)

Benelope…I just can’t express how I love their relationship, the bond they’re building is so beautiful and natural, that I can’t stop smiling every time that I read about them!

and omg are we getting jealous Benedict? bc I’m so ready for that!!

You’re making me love more and more the characters Gen, Lucy and Henry, they are becoming so important in Ben and Pen’s lives. I adore that the Granvilles and Gen have a soft spot for Pen! My girl deserves all the love!!

Gen, Henry and Lucy have definitely been my favorites in the new chapter, I just love how they already know how Ben and Pen are destined to fall in love!

How they noticed Ben’s feelings for Pen are changing even though he hasn’t realized it yet!

I just know they will support them in every step of their growing relationship!

The way you handle Marina’s situation was such a good move, honestly I love this idea more that what the series gave us! And El and Phillip meeting earlier omg I didn’t expect that but I love it!

Everything in this story have been absolutely perfection and I can’t wait to read what’s next!❤️

Thank you, friend! That means so much to me!! ♥️♥️♥️

I’m happy you’re liking the changes so far. I hope that will continue going into season 2! I love that you reread the fic and enjoyed it so much you read it over a s1 rewatch ☺️ I had to go over s1 a few times to make sure I was making the correct changes and non-changes lol

Yes! We are starting to get jealous Benedict! Not that he even realizes he’s jealous. Like all Bridgertons, he’s a bit oblivious to his own feelings for a little bit. It’s fun to write, I must admit!

I’m so happy you and others are loving the trio that is Henry, Lucy, and Gen. I was always sad Henry didn’t come back in the show, and wanted a reason to ensure he’s kept in the plot. Haha! So him, Lucy, and Gen are pretty much single handedly determined to pull Benedict’s head out of the sand eventually.

They’re fun to write. An absolute joy, really.

Is it bad to admit that I also prefer Marina marrying Wetherby then what happens in the show? I’ve actually become quite attached to that plot point. @velvetcovered-brick and I have been constructing ways to include Wetherby more in the story. We’ve grown attached to our version of him!

There will be fun with El and Phillip! Phillip being introduced to El at this point in the story is important for what we’re telling and doing over all. That will become more clear as we go along, and I’ll probably rant about it in the author’s notes to explain it 😁

Thank you again for reading!!! ♥️♥️♥️

[thestobingirlie]

Your posts kinda inspire me to be more aware of how I’m writing the characters while writing this steddie fic I’m currently working on!! If it’s not too much would you be able to like give some tips on how to write them both? I know everyone has their own interpretations but I like yours, just don’t know how to put it all into a fic

thank you so much!! and i’ll sure try! i can’t guarantee these will be any good, but if you want any specifics just ask!

so, with steve i think something to keep in mind when writing him is that he’s a very self-contained kinda character. he holds back his tears, he tries to rein in his anger (post s1 lol), it’s only in really serious moments that he tells people about his insecurities and regrets. idk, i just think it’s important to remember that while steve does have insecurities, they aren’t something he willingly and openly shares, and he tries not to be very outwardly emotional. basically don’t have him opening up to characters super quickly, and if he cries, let it be at a super serious moment.

with eddie, he’s kind of the same, but he’s loud and grandiose as he hides his soft underbelly. when s4 begins he does still think badly of others based on their interests, he’s pretentious in a way. he thinks he’s a deeper, more realised person than others because he likes d&d and metal. obviously as the season continues he realises how wrong he is, but i think he’d still have a little bit of that superiority that needs to be broken away.

eddie’s in an insane situation in s4, he’s reliant on people he’d have mocked a few days before. i could see him lashing out a little, post s4. his entire world views been shaken! let him take some time to grapple with that. (obviously depending on when your fic is set)

also, both of the boys are quite judgmental, so let them be bitchy lmao. i think steve would share most of his comments with robin, and if eddie is with his hellfire crowd i could see him announcing them to get attention, but largely i think he bitches to uncle wayne lmao

oh, and make sure each boy gives as good as he gets. if one of them is mocking the other, don’t let the other just sit there and take it. that just makes them look pathetic, and they’re not those kind of boys.

also, robin is steve’s most important person. and the kids! don’t get steve forget that just because he’s dating eddie.

i think another thing is that though i can see eddie still being stuck in high school mode, steve’s mostly moved past that kind of stuff. basically eddie’s internal monologue probably will still revolve around stuff that happened in high school, but don’t make steve constantly think about his ‘king steve’ days. if it’s part of a larger conversation, fun! but don’t just make steve drown in regrets, it can get boring fast.

oh and on that topic, i can really see eddie not being able to move past his high school world view immediately post s4. while steve has graduated and kinda ‘joined the adult world’, eddie hasn’t. and though i see a lot more fics having steve struggling with who he is after high school, i think that’s something we would see more in eddie.

anyway! i hope these were helpful? i’ve never really given advice like this before. also these are largely individual and set around s4, so if you still want help regarding their actual relationship, or during a different timeline, just send another ask!!

[acaciapines]

Your nanowrimo pieces are soooo goooood they hit so hard fr fr. I’m especially LOVING today’s one with the owl & the collector even tho I don’t rlly know that much abt toh bc I haven’t watched it but I can tell that u LOVE IT & I can’t wait to learn more thru osmosis once the fic is poooosteeeed✨ (i WILL read it i PROMISE i SWEAR)

Anyways give us the thoughts, the tea, tell us how you make the words do that✨ anything u wanna give in regards to today’s bit!! We’re not picky!

Hope y’all are doing okay! Gal says hi :) Remember to eat and drink something, take breaks, and look after yourselves and each other! We love you! This has been a Daily Interaction Ask <3

he he :3 im glad youre enjoying!! its been really fun to pick out my favorite bits even when usually those are the ones w/out context lol. look at my owl and weep boy. firefly <3

YOU WILL LEARN SO MUCH VIA OSMOSIS....literally now that im also doing something for s1 its like. why watch owl house we have owl house at home (the owl house at home is a 1 million word daemon au) (<- 1 mil is not a joke btw idk if it'll hit it but itll at least come very close. no idk why i did this.)

as for today! hmmm...

its truly so fun to write the collector. like im not joking about him being my favorite owl house character despite his maybe twenty total minutes of screentime, so its been such a JOY to expand his role in this series!!

bc like. god. actually i think i wrote a whole like. bit of flash fiction/prose poetry type thing for them a while ago. probably in my files somewhere. but just. youre an immortal eight year old. you are in these years where you need to interact with other people for your own mental stability and health. to figure out the whole Being A Person thing. and you are trapped for like, centuries. trapped away from everyone and everything and DUST, which, in universe, in literally connection personified. you're cut off from all of this.

and you are, let me say again, eight years old.

truly the collector is just. hes had everyone he ever cares about leave him--his siblings the other archivists left him behind not out of any sense of cruelty, really, but because caring about people just isnt really a thing they do. quite frankly they live so long they didnt even notice. theyre far-away stars. not far because they're mean. just because thats what stars do.

and then king's dad (who um. doesnt have a name <3 this is why the collector calls him 'the big bully' its literally bc i never gave him a name--) was an adult the collector actually trusted and looked up to (he meshed REALLY WELL into titan society until the archivists started Doing A Murder since titans are the only beings that match them in power and they have very very different ideas about dust). like ive said before the collector is owlbeastkin but before that they never had a super stable sense of identity--in another world where they stayed w/ the titans they wouldve ended up a titan.

and then king's dad just. trapped him in a tablet forever.

and like, to be fair to king's dad he was reacting out of fear and the best knowledge he had (he assumed the collector led the archivists to the titans, and like, he did, but its not like he knew he was doing that, and, you know, poor guy had seen a huge chuck of his fellow titans killed including babies and eggs of which he had an egg to consider), but it still TRAPPED THEM. and then he died and so did all the rest of the titans so nobody could free the collector even if they wanted to.

and then BELOS, who manipulated and lied to the collector for so long and was also literally his only friend after being alone forever, so like, of course the collector just blindly went along with whatever he said. he was gonna free them!! he listened to them when they talked about stardust which nobody else ever did! he had no idea what the fuck a witch was! he just liked being able to see the stardust sometimes, and belos brought him to places with a lot of stardust. to destroy it, but like--you know. it was THERE.

but all these people were just USING them, and they never really understand that until king comes around. and king's also a scared eight year old!! but like. king's also not wrong. the collector did aid belos in destroying the entire isles. like no joke belos SUCCEEDS here. like not long-term obvi this has a happy ending but at the point we're in at for the future? it doesnt matter that the draining spell failed. all the palistrom trees are dead. witch society Cannot come back from that even if they did end up beating the collector. theyre doomed.

anyways what was i saying. collector. right.

so like, then they meet firefly/grr-click-growl/wings-across-night/the owl beast (king of having so many names i love her <3) and shes like, the first person who cares for them and ISNT using them. even king is using them!! but firefly has seen Some Shit. she sees the collector as a hatchling who was kicked out of his nest and is doing her best to be some sort of stable figure for him, but she doesnt Not see the stuff he's done.

the collector took over the world bc he's scared--all he's ever known is being used and trapped so he doesnt exactly trust most people easily. firefly would Love to not be in this world anymore. shes also got a loyalty to eda and king and luzmari. and, like, cool motive, still trapping an entire society of people.

but like. shes the one who is here right now and nobody else is trying to help this kid.

but the collector just. hes just an eight year old. a very, very old eight year old. but he doesnt understand things like "you can make the wrong choices and still choose to do better later" and "im mad at what you did but that doesnt mean i dont care about you."

he just sees someone upset with him. just sees another person who used him and doesnt care and is going to leave bc everyone leaves him and in a world where EVERY SINGLE PERSON comes in pairs, hes the only one who stands alone.

basically tl;dr: collector my beloved <3

[zannolin]

For fic ask game: F, M

F: Share a snippet from one of your favorite dialogue scenes you’ve written and explain why you’re proud of it.

oh HELL yes i've written so much dialogue i love lately. this never happens (i fucking hate writing dialogue).

“Amanda’s mom unfriended me on Facebook, you know,” he tells Johnny one night, as they sit on the back deck with their feet in the grass. He doesn’t know why he says it. Maybe he just wanted someone to know. In the light glowing through the paper paneling of the door behind them, it’s hard to make out Johnny’s expression. Not that Daniel’s looking, or anything. “That blows,” Johnny finally says. He takes a swig of beer. “You should unfriend her back.” Daniel can’t help the laugh that bubbles up at that. He feels oddly light. Better. “That’s not how Facebook works, Johnny.” A huff, rendered softer by the darkness. “It should be.” “Yeah, everything’s a fight with you, isn’t it?” There’s a pause before Johnny says, “Not everything, LaRusso.” They don’t say anything else for a while after that.

this section from objects in motion is one of my favorite exchanges i wrote in the Entire piece. it just has like. the vibes. like (i hope) as a reader it's obvious with the context that johnny has changed, and johnny is talking about daniel here, and daniel hasn't caught on so there's two completely different levels of conversation going on. plus it's got johnny attempting to be supportive (he's so dumb i love him) and daniel trying to lighten things up with a joke that completely misses the mark and they just kind of sit there because well. what do you say after that. what do you do! they don't know! for me it really captured the essence of where they were in their developing relationship at that point in the narrative.

was also very happy with how the sam and daniel "are you getting a divorce" conversation turned out, but even more so how the subsequent kata-with-johnny one went because there's a lot of subtext there about sam starting to figure things out and she's not sure how to feel about it but she's sort of hesitantly giving a kind of blessing, or the hope of one someday, with the "miguel said you were good together"—like she's asking are you happy and daniel's maybe saying i think so and inviting her to be a part of it. if she wants. i could write essays about my own fics man i've thought about this so much. i love them. BUT ANYWAY i'll stop now.

M: Got any premises on the back burner that you’d care to share?

so many. sooooo many. i have one where sam and johnny get yeeted back to 1985 to witness the all valley that year since daniel's an eternal knot of repression; ft lawrusso kinda sorta, sam and johnny bonding, sam being her father's daughter, and mr miyagi my beloved. i have a concept where daniel from canon universe (somewhere in s1-3 i think) gets swapped with daniel from a different universe where mr. miyagi is still alive and lawrusso is canon, which is an absolute fucking disaster but also great because i get to explore more damanda marriage issues and hey here's a daniel who will actually COMMUNICATE with johnny, and here's a johnny who will actually COMMUNICATE with daniel, and it's not even ooc because i make the rules. there's a vague sam and johnny bonding werewolf au knocking around in my head also, and i really really want to write a johnny and ali fic eventually. i have like a million more but i think that's enough for now.

ask game!!

[grasslandgirl]

HELLO oh I am :eyes emoji: at every single thing on that list, your wips sound so. cool! absolutely dying to hear more about leverage ot3 amnesia ideas & juno steel and the case of the lost memories, whatever you are interesting in sharing <3

oh with JOY will i talk about these jade, with JOY!!

i'm gonna put this below a cut cause i'm gonna answer and give snips for both and it's gonna get LONG bc i Cannot Shut Up xox

for the leverage ot3 amnesia au i dont have a TON written, it was more just a collection of amnesia au ideas for all three of them that i was putting down so as not to forget them- i'm such a sucker for amnesia aus where the concrete memories are gone, but the sense memories and the gut instincts, and the muscle memory remains; and i think that trope carries over really interestingly to the leverage ot3-- parker who feels herself physically relaxed around these two strange men she doesn't know, eliot who instinctively lets these strangers touch him because some part inside of him he can't remember knows they won't hurt him, etc etc

i haven't written a ton of it, but i do have a dash of eliot pov i'll slide your way <33

Everything’s fuzzy. Eliot hates when things are fuzzy. He blinks against the crust in his eyes, but whatever room he’s in is clinically bright. His mouth is dry and his whole body is a single dull ache- heavy medication. Someone’s drugging him. In the back of his mind, Eliot’s furious about that; wants to rage until everything is burned out of his system and he can think clearly again, but he can’t remember why.  Why he’s- wherever he is. Why he hates mind-numbing medication so badly. Why he needs it in the first place.  The alarms in the back of his head are clanging- telling him, danger, threats, wake up, get up, fight your way out- but Eliot has to fight to open his eyes all the way.  He’s in a hospital. And- yeah, okay, that makes sense; even if it ignites the same anxious-angry pit in his stomach the meds do. Glaring halogen ceiling lights and clinical white walls and a softly beeping heart monitor and an IV plugged into his arm (he fights the urge to rip it out, if only for the moment) and- a man. Sitting in the chair next to him.

:)))) eliot pov my beloved....... i should write more leverage fic, huh?

and then SIMILARLY juno steel and the case of the missing memories is ALSO an amnesia au ksjvnskfjvnsfb

the concept was that at some point vaguely s3 on the carte blanche, juno gets a bad hit and loses all his memories of basically the plot of the show- so he can remember everything before the case of the murderous mask- but he doesn't remember anything with the kanagawas, or meeting nureyev, or the martian pill, or losing his eye, etc etc etc

so he wakes up on this ship- off mars for the first time in his life- still in a pre-s1 headspace, with only one eye and a bunch of people he doesn't know. and rita :)

tbh i only got like. a couple eps into s3 of junoverse and then never got caught back up (whoops) so like. idk what really happens during s3 and this fic was a big project in terms of like. going back to s1 juno characterization and foiling that against who s3 juno is and who s3 peter is, and how this kind of regression effects their relationship (or lack thereof, at the outset of the fic, bc they're not together yet) and while i did and do think it's really interesting, it was also like. a big thing to undertake and i got wary of like. characterizing juno effectively in it? and i wanted to slow roll him regaining his memories in bits and pieces and was having trouble pacing that effectively, and so it ended up on a back burner i never returned to </3 alas

but maybe someday when i finally go back and relisten to and catch up on tpp i'll go back and wirte more of it! in the mean time, have some snips:

He heard soft footsteps, almost silent, sliding across the hard floors of the ship behind him. Juno froze on instinct, senses sharpening to a knife’s point as he tried to focus on the steps over the blasting audio from Rita’s stream. If Rita noticed Juno stiffening, she didn’t say anything. Even though Rita had told him, again and again, that he could trust his fellow crew members aboard the Carte Blanche, that they were a family, Juno couldn’t shake the paranoia he’d known his whole life. He didn’t trust easy, he’d learned that the hard way over and over again as all the people he’d let into his life had betrayed or abandoned him. Except Rita. If he’d ever known how, Juno had long since forgotten how to be a part of a family, and this motley crew of criminals was no exception.  The footsteps neared, and Juno’s mind- as fuzzy and slow-moving as it still was, even three days after whatever accident he’d had- spun, trying to remember where the closest gun was, just in case. In his periphery, Juno saw the figure approaching. Tall, with taller hair and narrow shoulders- Ransom.  Some of the tension dropped from Juno’s shoulders. He still didn’t trust Ransom, there was something off about the guy, something about how he watched Juno and spoke so carefully around him that made Juno think he was hiding something. But there was something- a gut feeling Juno had about him. A deja vu kind of trust and comfort and uncertainty. Juno didn’t remember where it came from, but it was there. He trusted Ransom more than anyone else on the ship, other than Rita, even though that wasn’t saying much. Ransom came close enough to catch Juno’s eye. Raised his eyebrow in a silent question- the same one every person on the ship asked him every time they saw him: do you remember me yet? Juno shrugged, trying not to dislodge Rita too much. Ransom nodded, his expression never changing from the smooth, impassive mask he always wore. It itched at Juno, that impassivity. He wanted to know what was under it, wanted to know what Ransom was really thinking in that pretty head of his. The only people who were that careful and inscrutable were people with something to hide. Juno was a PI- he should know. As Ransom turned to walk away, Juno realized that the closest entrance to Ransom’s quarters was on his blind side. That he’d gone the long way around the ship to enter and exit within view of Juno’s periphery. Something uncertain and heavy and familiar squeezed in Juno’s stomach.

[i can't help another snippet, it's taking everythig i have not to give like three more on top of this, i forgot how good this au was skjfnvsfb sav from two years ago was crazy]

“Juno,” Ransom said, his voice infuriatingly even.  “Ransom-” that was the other thing. The other muscle-sense-memory bullshit that made Juno’s head ache. It felt- wrong, every time he called him Ransom. Every time Juno saw him, or thought about him or started to say his name, he had to correct himself, make himself say Ransom; instead of the other name he had rattling around in his head. He didn’t know where it came from, or why he associated it so strongly with Ransom, but Juno was ready to fucking know who Peter Nureyev was, and why he could’t stop thinking about him. Patience wasn’t ever a strong suit for Juno.  He bit the bullet. “Why do I have another name for you in my head, Ransom?” There. The flash of- of something, of emotion Juno had been waiting for. It was brief, something Juno might’ve missed if he hadn’t been looking so closely for any kind of reaction, but it was there. Shock, uncertainty, grief, flickered across Ransom’s face before settling back into his perpetual inscrutability.  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Juno,” Ransom said, but there was a tremor, barely there, under his composed tone. Juno had shaken him, and he was going to get answers, damnit, come hell or high water. “Really?” Juno challenged, and he’d forgotten a lot, but he hadn’t forgotten this: the chase, the interrogation, cornering somebody into admitting and confessing and telling Juno what he wanted- what he needed- to hear. “Then who the hell is Peter Nureyev?” There it was again; the flickering, uncertain emotion, the disappearance of Ransom’s composure, the twist in Juno’s stomach that meant he was onto something.  “I- Juno, do you-” “No.” Ransom’s face fell, if infinitesimally. “I don’t- remember. Not really, but there’s… I don’t remember you, but I look at you and my brain says Nureyev, and I don’t fucking know why.”

:))) i just reread this whole wip- and it's almost 7k long- bc i didnt remember a lot of it and. oohohohoho. god. i was deranged.

thank you again for sending in this ask, jade!! sorry (not sorry) it got so long skjfvnksfjbn

send me the name of a wip off of this list and i'll reply with a snippet and/or my thoughts on it !!

[instructionsnotincluded]

Okay, so one of the things I love most about your OBX fics is that you actually let the characters be flawed in a realistic sense:

Take John B. for example, in the show he’s quickly established to the viewers as a leader of the Pogues and is very noble and unselfish. But in your stories, he shows times and instances when he’s ungrateful, selfish, arrogant, and overly impulsive — AND THAT’S OKAY!

John B is 17, a teenager! Yeah, it’s kind of crappy how he didn’t want to tell Audrey of the money in the beginning of the first part of the series, and because it can’t all be work and no fun, but that’s a very normal teenage mindset. You can see very early how Audrey gave up a lot of her goals to care for him, and him having negative qualities gives an extremely realistic sibling relationship where the older sibling’s hardships go unnoticed and often unthanked.

As for Kie, I LOVE the love triangle plot you added. Once again, they’re teenagers. Kie and John B have a very casual outlook on emotional intimacy and how it can be connected to sex. They don’t see if as a big deal (this isn’t a con but just being real) as opposed to Sarah, who values intimacy deeply. It makes sense that John B and Kie would fool around with each other because of how they view sex and how they would think it’s so not a big deal, despite it having huge consequences on the group dynamics.

Once again, very typical teenager behavior! It’s a large part why I prefer your Kiara to the show’s canon Kiara. I feel like the show wants to push onto the idea that she’s this tough girl who takes charge and doesn’t take shit, but there are a lot of cases where her impulsiveness has consequences and her “no shit” attitude can come across as unsympathetic or not very empathetic.

(Her claiming Pope was selfish for caring about his scholarship interview in S1 always gets me mad -I’m sorry)

I think that��s also why in my story, I changed her character a bit. I think if there was another female friend in her group before the show’s events had started, it would have rounded out more of her character. There’s nothing wrong with being brash and abrasive, but it can get to a point where it’s downright rude and hurtful.

I think it’s partly why I’m so reluctant to get on the Jiara ship (sorry if you ship, I’m not trying to be a hater, but just hear me out) because yes, it’s shitty planning on the writer’s part by passing her around for all the boys in the group. But it’s also because JJ is someone with a lot of baggage and I feel like someone with a lot of empathy would really help him. He’s also extremely loyal, almost to a fault, so how he wanted to with Kiara after how she lowkey dumped Pope after Pope PINED after her doesn’t really make sense to me (she was under no obligation to like him back, but it was a bit callous on her part)

Sorry, I didn’t mean to word vomit all of this onto your page. I love the show and all the characters, but these are irks that just stood out to me the most pleasedontbemadatme

This means so much. You have no idea! I really wanted them to seem realistic when I set out to write the Pogues, and I wanted Audrey to fit in seamlessly and also realistically. So you thinking I did that means so much! Truly! They all have their terrible moments, sometimes they say and do the wrong thing, but they're SUPPOSED TO! And I love that you agree.

That scene from season one gets me every time too. I think that's a good example of why I think there was originally supposed to be a John B/Kiara/Sarah love triangle, because she's so concerned about him and where he is that she thinks the most important thing for all of them is finding out where he went. When Pope has a life changing interview that next morning.

I'm not huge on the Jiara ship either, maybe if they wrote Kiara differently, I'd be more into it, but I think you make some really valid points. JJ has so much baggage, more than Kiara probably realizes, and I feel like he's better suited with someone that he has both known for a long time, and therefore trusts, and one who understands where he's coming from. JJ literally has nothing at the height of season three. No family, no where to live, no job, no money, and, arguably, no friends who are actively concerned/thinking about him or wondering if he's even ok. Dude hasn't eaten in days, and according to the show it seems like he's only consumed beer since leaving the island.

Ok, rant over, hahahahahaha. Thank you for enjoying the story!!!

[robo-dino-puppies]

sooooooo... s2 of good omens is coming out soon and I’m hyped (but nervous! but also hyped!). I’ve stayed away from most promotional material so aside from knowing about some new characters I’m going in pretty blind.

I don't really consider myself a writer ... I've never posted anything anywhere, or really shared anything ever. I don’t read a ton of fanfic bc for whatever reason the stars have to align just right for me to be into it, and that doesn’t always happen even for my most beloved fandoms (like star wars - love Luke to bits, can’t stand to read practically anything about him. and yet I can read Rebels and Clone Wars-era fic just fine. idek). buuuuuuut after s1 of good omens I did devour several months of other peoples’ fic, and start (and never finish) a thing myself, and I kind of wanted to post the very rough first draft snippets I had for... posterity? I guess? or... as a push for me to try writing more? so. be warned if you click the readmore it’s gonna be a giant text post.

I feel a little sad that I never did more with it, and a little sad that now with s2 it will be firmly AU instead of... whatever you call canon-compliant things that continue on after canon has ended, but also excited because maybe s2 will spark more ideas, since I kind of ran out of inspiration and drive. anyway!

working title was Fire Above the Tideline, and it follows a surveillance demon (Kri) and a filing angel (Elstael) and what plans Heaven might have had after the failed apocalypse.

if you’re reading this (why? haha) snippets are separated by ‘--’s and some might make sense in sequence, but some others have big timeskips with no context.

--

Kriddar watches. Surveillance and intelligence are far too sophisticated words for Hell's work, she thinks, after a few years of doing it. She just... watches. Things, people, places. High-valued souls ready to stumble. It's not exciting work, particularly. She's never there when things go down, as the humans say, if the things in question ever do, in fact, go down. Her rank is unremarkable - not the lowest of the low, but whatever happens at the top is far beyond her paygrade. (Not, of course, that she's ever been paid.)

Watching Earth isn't considered a desirable position. She gets jeering laughter and sneers when she tells other demons her job (although to be fair, that’s a common reaction from other demons about anything). You had to be stuck on Earth, after all, and spend a lot of effort avoiding getting too noticed by the humans. But Kriddar finds she actually likes it. Earth has air that isn't stagnant, humid, and choking with bitter ash. It has climates that aren't sweltering or freezing. Even in crowded cities, which remind her of Hell quite a bit, people tend to respect as much of a personal bubble as they can. In Hell, her fellow demons go out of their way to purposefully elbow everyone they can in a crowded hall. There are a lot of humans, but Earth is quiet in a way Hell could never be.

After the Armageddon-that-didn't, Kriddar is afraid that she's going to be called back to the home office as upper management figures out what to do. But she hears nothing for three days until she she gets her new assignment out of a tinny smartphone speaker. The kid in possession of said smartphone is annoying the very limited good graces out of a whole car of New York subway riders with a loud video of another child who is opening a toy for the camera. The level of discontent and malice being directed at both kid and parent from the rest of the commuters is truly breathtaking (to use a human turn of phrase) and would probably fuel the bubbling sulfur pools Downstairs for several millennia to come.

"DEMON KRIDDAR." The video-kid's obnoxious, ear-shattering voice gets a definitely demonic undertone that no one can hear but her. "YOU ARE BEING REASSIGNED."

"Mm?" she says to her book. Although people talking to themselves are not exactly an uncommon sight on the train, it's enough to draw people's attention when she doesn't want it, so she concentrates a little harder on being unremarkable. She's told them time and time again not to call her in public, but do they listen? No, of course not.

Nothing to make her job easier.

"LONDON. WATCH THE DEMON CROWLEY. MONTHLY REPORTS."

"Mm-hm." She flips a page. Watching a demon is unusual, but if this is the same Crowley that was mixed up in the botched apocalypse it makes sense. She's heard some rumors.

"FIRST REPORT DUE BY MONTH’S END. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"

"Mm-hm," she repeats, and casually closes her book. The video goes back to being the shrieking kid, who is now screaming with laughter, and the palpable fury in the car ratchets up another notch.

Kriddar sighs and twitches her fingers against the creased paperback cover of her book. The smartphone miraculously flashes and spits a cloud of acrid smoke. The kid drops it with a yelp, and then starts crying. The murderous miasma that had settled over everyone in the car slowly starts to dissipate. Wet snuffles and wailing aren't actually much better than the previous noise, in her demonic opinion, but at least she's fairly sure that now the humans aren't going to pull out a weapon and commit homicide. That would have necessitated police, who would have asked everyone questions, which would have meant delays. Kriddar wants none of those things.

Now that she has a new assignment, she's got a plane to catch.

--

London feels much the same as the last time she'd been there, although that had been forty years ago. Of course, it looks different. The cars, the buildings, the people... She hangs around in Heathrow for a bit, watching the humans bubble about in the messy, harried, angry soup of emotion that is any international airport. The clothing isn't all that different from New York, of course, so she leaves her appearance as-is and gets on a bus heading toward Soho.

She's got a slip of paper in her pocket with the demon Crowley's last known whereabouts. A bookshop, apparently. This makes her smile. Kriddar likes books. They give her plenty of plausible cover when she's sitting around waiting for something to happen. For a while, that's all she'd used them for. But then, out of the boredom visited upon her by a target who refused to do anything reportable for days on end, she'd actually tried reading them, and... well. Humans were fascinating. She's read books about what they think Hell is like (all inaccurate, on the whole, but some parts they'd imagined are startlingly worse than the reality), on Heaven (she can't remember Heaven enough to judge their accuracy, but she figures they'd done about as well as they had with Hell), on human history (shockingly inaccurate considering they were the ones who had lived it), and everything in between. She likes fiction the most - imaginary humans doing imaginary things. Sometimes imaginary not-humans. It's like they’d invented their own plane of existence, drawn in it ink and stuffed it into the space between fragile paper pages. Creation on par with the Almighty Herself, if Kriddar felt like being blasphemous (she did).

The bookshop is on a corner, painted brick-red, with light stone columns framing a wooden door. She walks up to read the sign in the window, reaching for the handle, and immediately pulls her fingers away and hisses. She takes a step back. Something is awful about the door - no, not awful. Good. It's radiating... the whole place is steeped in... in angelic energy. She scrubs her tongue against the roof of her mouth and makes a face. Well, no new books for her, then. Anything coming out of that shop would reek of goodness and light. Entirely off-putting.

"He's closed," someone on the street says.

Kriddar winces. The shock of the bookshop's aura must have made her don't-notice-me glamour slip. She slowly gathers it around herself again as she turns. "Oh?" she says mildly to the human.

"Yeah, been closed since Saturday, I think. Some people around here swear the place was on fire then, but... well, looks fine to me. He keeps daft hours anyway."

"I'll try later, then. Thanks," she says. Her glamour should take care of it, but it never hurts to be polite when interacting with the humans, if only because they're less likely to remember her that way. With a final metaphorical tug she secures the I'm-unremarkable compulsion around her and watches as the encounter dribbles out of the human’s mind like water squeezed from a sponge. He continues on down the street as if he'd never stopped.

She retreats from the shop and finds a place to settle in and watch, and to check the paper in her pocket again. No, she definitely has the right address. The thing is, she just can't understand how a demon could be inside such a place for any length of time. It would have her tearing her corporation’s hair out. Perhaps it's the right address, but Crowley is no longer there? As she hides herself behind a newspaper, she reaches out with senses honed by centuries of observing. And yes, there is unmistakably one demon inside that shop. As well as one angel.

--

Four days later she sees the door to the bookshop finally open into the bright late-summer morning. Two figures come down the steps: Crowley is easily recognizable from his description, so the other must be the angel she'd heard about. They're smiling, arm-in-arm, and positively joyous. They both circle a shiny, black, illegally-parked car, and Crowley opens the door for the angel before sliding into the driver's seat himself. The car rumbles to life; he drives away with an unlikely effervescent laugh and a speed that the other humans on the road don't appreciate.

It should turn her stomach.

But there's something about them that is intriguing, pulling at her mind much like an unexpected plot twist in a book. Despite the positively heavenly vibe of the bookshop, the angel hadn't been throwing off holiness and Grace like the few other angels she's had the misfortune of meeting during her stint on Earth. And Crowley - for all that people said he was Satan's favorite, that he's been working temptations and wreaking havoc among the humans since Eden - was more of a mild, mosquito-like buzz of evil rather than a maelstrom of it. She folds up the newspaper and taps her fingers against the soft crinkled pages before dropping it on the sidewalk.

Now that Kriddar has the sense of him, she can follow his energy across the city. It's (unfortunately) not as easy as how the humans plug an address into their clever handheld computers and have it spit out a flag on a virtual map, but it's far better than trying to find him by sight alone.

It takes her a while, but she finally ends up at a restaurant. Going inside is far too risky - it's hardly two tables across, no corners to surreptitiously peek around, not even a leafy ficus near the door to lurk behind. There's a window, but the odd pair isn't seated next to it. She grumbles to herself. Outside will have to do.

She walks up and down the sidewalk on the other side of the street to judge her options, picks a spot, and waits.

They're just visible inside the shop - two figures seated opposite each other, plates and cups on the table between them. The angel tends to gesture enthusiastically; Crowley, on the other hand, is nearly motionless, leaning toward him with his chin propped on his hand and an expression on his face she can only describe as besotted. Every once in a while she can see that he speaks and laughs, but the angel clearly carries most of the conversation. Over an hour later they finally emerge. Again smiling and happy, again Crowley opening the door for the angel. His hand lingers on the angel's shoulder as he settles into the car's leather seat. They share a look of such overpowering fondness that even across the street, Kriddar sneezes. And then he gets into the other side of the car and speeds away.

She puts down her book and stares after them. This is not, she thinks in bafflement, at all what she expected.

--

The sign on the bookshop's door has not been changed to open, but she can see movement inside the windows. It's not him, but the angel. He walks around the shop, talking, picking books off shelves and tables, then walking out of her view. A little while later, he repeats the process. This goes on for long enough to force her to choose a different spot if she wants to stay in the shadows.

Finally the doors open again.

"Just think of it this way," Crowley says, stepping out. "Now you actually have some books to sell."

"I've sold books before," the angel insists, coming to the door and watching Crowley saunter to the car.

"Mm," he says. He opens the driver's side and leans against the frame casually. "How many? One every decade? One every two decades?"

"Oh, hush," the angel says, and they both laugh.

Kriddar barely holds in the sneeze this time.

Crowley slides into the seat. "Be back before dinner."

"The Ritz?" The angel's eyes light up.

"Whatever you want, angel," he says, and drives off with another unbearably fond look.

She waits until the angel has gone back inside the shop and she can no longer see him in the windows before following the trail of Crowley's energy. It leads her to a block of expensive flats in Mayfair. The car is parked outside and he is nowhere in sight. It presents more of a challenge, snooping-wise, than the bookshop had. There's far less cover.

Eventually she decides to use the roof of a neighboring building. It's short work to miracle the locked lobby open and take the stairs to the top floor. Another miracle and she's through the door to the roof.

Crowley's flat is a penthouse, and she's got a great view of it from her new spot. She immediately sees motion through one of the windows, although she can't see him, exactly. There seems to be a great deal of vibrant green vegetation in the way. She settles into a seated position and props her chin on her hand.

--

The unexpected whump of seriously strong demonic wards materializing out of nowhere nearly knocks her sideways. For a panicked second she is sure he's spotted her and she's going to have a fight on her hands, and Kriddar is terrible at fighting.

But nothing comes, and when she gathers her courage to probe at the wards, she finds them neatly contained by the walls of the flat. She can no longer sense his presence behind them.

"Well fuck you too," she grumbles. First the assignment turns out weird - demon and angel, somehow involved in the failure of Armageddon, apparently best of... friends? - and now he has to go and make it difficult on top of that?

She climbs to her feet, feeling suddenly exposed without her supernatural senses being able to pinpoint him. The ward even seems to block her human vision though the windows, because they've turned both strangely flat and excessively reflective at the same time. It's enough to give her corporation a headache.

The roof is no longer a good vantage point, so she goes back down the stairs and reinforces her don't-notice-me enough that she hopes it will work even with on demons. There's a good view of his car through the lobby windows, so that's where she parks herself, doing away with any pretense of books or newspapers.

She can feel the second he leaves the flat and pops back up on her metaphysical radar. She holds perfectly still.

He doesn't even glance around as he saunters out of his building and climbs back into the car. A pedestrian has to dodge him before she loses sight of the car to traffic.

--

It's already getting easier to track him, now that she knows some likely places he'll go. She travels rather confidently back to the bookshop, pleased to see the car parked carelessly outside it, but she freezes as she gets closer. The same dark wards that he'd put up at the flat are here, too, as well as a shimmering angelic protection that floats outside the whole building, looking like a soap bubble if she stares into another dimension. She grumbles.

--

What Kriddar doesn't realize is that Heaven has sent another angel. It's just that they're as astonishingly good at their job as their previous colleagues have been bad at it.

The don't-notice-me around them is so intense that it takes her five whole days to, well. Notice. When she does, it's just the tiniest itch at the back of her brain. Like a toothache that your tongue couldn't leave alone, she imagines, if she'd ever have had a toothache. Her eyes keep wandering away from Crowley to a particular bench, then she scolds herself for getting distracted and looks back at Crowley. But then her brain says, hey, wait, there's something... and she looks back to the bench. It's nearly ten minutes of this before she sees the angel, sitting upright and still, and it's a minute more before her brain can comprehend that she's seen the same angel for four days in a row, but just not noticed them.

"Well, damn," she breathes to herself. She's never been aware of being on the receiving end of a misdirection before. It's unsettling and impressive at the same time.

She gets up and walks over to the bench. It's a risk, she supposes, but she's so curious. This angel is clearly different from the others.

--

[cw: uhhhhh violent “death” (discorporation) lol - nothing too graphic I think]

"Remove your hand from me," the angel says coldly.

Kriddar blinks and does so. Then she steps back onto the sidewalk and shrugs, palms up.

"Do not presume to touch an angel of the Lord," they say, and walk on.

Unfortunately, straight into the path of an oncoming red double-decker bus.

Tires screech, as do humans, and a fragile flesh-and-blood corporation goes flying. Kriddar slides her hands into her pockets and surveys the grisly scene with no small amount of amusement. The angel's corporation isn't getting back up, that's for sure. It gives a few wet, pained gasps before going limp as the humans scream and flutter about.

"Watch out," she says, with the mild air of someone commenting on the weather. "There's a bus."

The angel, floating ethereally above their former corporation, sends a blistering metaphysical glare in her direction.

"You might want to learn how traffic works," she suggests. "Otherwise you were doing great. Top notch, really. Much better than your colleagues." She gives a jaunty wave and picks her way through the stopped cars, around the vaguely human-shaped smear and the unhappy mortals, to the other side of the street. She can practically feel the glare on the back of her neck before she hears the whoosh of the angelic energy leaving the earthly plane of existence. She allows herself a laugh and continues on to the Soho bookshop.

Two days later they're in the park again, and so is a certain angel.

"That must have set a record, getting the paperwork for new corporation through so fast," she says, coming up behind the bench and dangling her arms over the back of it.

The angel doesn't respond for a few long minutes. Kriddar doesn't mind. She watches Crowley instead, noting the way he leans into Aziraphale's shoulder and how their fingers brush together as they toss peas to the ducks. Don't presume to touch an angel of the Lord, indeed.

"You were trying to warn me," the angel says.

Kriddar gives them a sideways glance. "I was."

"Why?"

"We were having a conversation, weren't we?" She shrugs. "Terrible way to go, anyway. Happened to me once, back when cars were newer and traffic wasn't so... regulated. By the way, you read up on that yet? Traffic?"

"I... yes." If she's not mistaken, the angel looks sheepish. "I believe I underestimated the dangers of this plane."

Kriddar laughs and leans closer. "Oooh, yes, lots of lovely ways to die here. Humans are very creative."

"It's amazing that they survive against such adversity."

"Suppose," she says.

They fall into silence, watching their respective targets. They finish with the peas and lounge against the fence for a while, watching the ducks. The sun floats lower, painting the pond with autumnal gold light. That's a sight you wouldn't get in Hell, she thinks. And probably not Heaven, either. Nothing holy about it, after all, just... Earthy.

"I like this one better, anyway," the angel says, apropos of nothing.

Kriddar blinks, and wonders if she’s missed the angel saying something before. "Sorry?"

"This corporation." They look down at themselves, stretching long fingers out above their knees, sticking their feet out too, as if to examine them. They're taller than the last time, obviously taller than Kriddar (most people are). Their features are less masculine, although not what she'd consider particularly feminine, either. Too strong a nose and too sharp of a jaw for that. Their skin is darker than Kriddar's, sort of a latte-ish color (Kriddar likes lattes, especially from a particular American chain of coffeeshops - there's a bitterness in them that's not entirely from the coffee that is a delight to her demonic tongue), and their hair is a dark brown halo of curls.

"Well, better try to stay out of traffic, then," she says.

For the first time, the angel cracks a smile. Just a tiny one, just a little lift of the corners of their mouth, but it sparks something inside Kriddar. Hell isn't the place to trade jokes. Derisive laughter, sure, but not friendly amusement. And that's what it feels like - friendly. It's a new feeling. She's surprised to find that she likes it.

"Do you like yours, ah, Kree- Kree..."

"Kree-dar," she enunciates. "My body?" She wiggles her fingers. "Sure, I guess. A bit short, but nice enough. It does its job."

"Kriddar, sorry. I'm Elstael." The angel holds out an elegant hand.

"Thought I wasn't supposed to touch you?"

The angel looks... embarrassed. "I apologize for that. I misjudged you."

She takes their hand and gives them a sharp smile. "You really didn't. I could've stopped you getting run over by the bus if I'd tried."

A flicker of uncertainty crosses their features, but they don't drop her hand for another second. "And I could have researched Earth more thoroughly and not assumed the worst of you. But here we are."

"You should assume the worst of me. I'm a demon."

The angel folds their hands on their lap. "I suppose that's true."

But they say it with another twist of their lips, like they're sharing a joke, and for some reason Kriddar doesn't feel like pushing the issue.

--

She thinks about the exchange later, staying out of the rain in dragonfly form as she watches Crowley's flat. The angel - Elstael - had unintentionally shortened her name, as if it were a nickname. She is... unused to the idea. If you got a nickname in Hell, it wouldn't be a nice one. Kriddar wasn't her original name, of course, but it was the only one she could remember. It had never felt right, not exactly, but it was what she had.

Except.

Except she had heard that after the fall, Crowley had been called Crawly, and he had chosen the name Crowley for himself some time later. "Flash bastard," they'd said, scornful. But just like that, he’d picked a new name, and kept it. And most demons called him Crowley now.

"Kreeeee," she says to herself. "Kri."

It sounds interesting. Fun. Different.

She thinks she'll keep it.

--

"Kriddar," the angel says the next time they see each other.

"Actually, it's Kri now," she says.

The angel raises their eyebrows. "Oh?"

"Yeah. You messed my name up the other day, but I like the way it sounded. So. Kri."

The angel presses their lips together and frowns. "Can you do that? Just... change your name?"

She shrugs. "Why not?"

Silence falls as the angel - Elstael, she figures she should call them, since they don't seem to be going anywhere - considers this. Crowley and Aziraphale share lunch at a cafe, their legs tangling under the little table. A cup of steaming coffee and a single plate with half a sandwich sits in front of the demon; there's a much wider spread in front of the angel - pasta, a salad, a few half-eaten appetizers. As she watches, Aziraphale offers some of the pasta to Crowley, who leans across the table to bite it off the fork. He licks his lips and smiles, says something, and Aziraphale smiles back.

She doesn't feel the urge to sneeze, anymore. Perhaps she's become immune.

"Do you understand this?" Elstael asks, after they're done with their meal.

"Understand what now?"

They wave a hand at the scene in front of them. "The whole... That."

"Nah," she says. "Not my job, anyway. I'm just supposed to watch and report."

"But..." They rub their fingers against their crisp dove-grey trousers. "Don't you wonder?"

She smirks. "Careful with wondering, your celestialness, that's dangerous for angels."

"I’m not entirely sure it is, though? If that," they gesture to the cafe, where Crowley is gazing nothing short of adoringly at Aziraphale, who is returning the gaze in kind, "isn't enough to cause him to Fall, I don't think that wondering about it is either."

They have a point, there. Crowley is her job, not the angel, but she has to admit she’s through about it. Why hasn't the angel Fallen? It must be a sin to... to do whatever they're doing. Angels and demons don't mix. They're like poles on a magnet, aren't they? They should push each other away. They shouldn't be able to touch.

Aziraphale slides his arm around through Crowley’s. For a fraction of a second, she thinks Crowley actually blushes, which shouldn't be possible for a demon, should it? Then he smiles easily, brightly, and they walk down the street.

Before they get too far away, she and Elstael rise from their bench and start to follow.

"I kept track of his file," they say out of nowhere.

"You know," Kri says, "you really need to work on your conversational rhythm."

"Sorry. Aziraphale's file, in Heaven. With all of the records we had on him. Centuries of travel records and photos. He shows up a lot."

"He shows up in his own file, does he? Shocking."

"No, I meant... the... the demon." They hesitate before saying quietly, "Crowley." As if his name will summon him.

Kri frowns and looks over. "'Shows up a lot' meaning...?"

"Frequently," Elstael says.

She makes a face and lets her head fall back in exasperation. Conversations with the angel are a bit like taking a tapestry apart thread by thread. Painstaking and excruciating, but she wants to know what will happen if she tugs at a strand, so she keeps on doing it.

"I meant," she says, with a patience that surprises even herself. "How. Frequently."

They look at her, hesitating, as if they've just realized that perhaps they shouldn't be sharing this information. She uses her experience with human interaction to look open, friendly, nonthreatening. To her surprise, it seems to work just as well on the angel, and they continue. "At first, not often. Then every few centuries. Then every few decades. Quite frequently, in this last millennium."

"Heaven knew this and didn't do anything?"

Very intriguingly, the angel looks uncomfortable. "Well, I was in charge of the file."

Pick, pick, pick. Kri pulls at the thread. "You mean, you knew, and didn't tell them?"

"I didn't know anything." Elstael sounds, if anything, regretful. "I didn't- he was just around. They were enemies, weren't they? They would meet sometimes. Er, in that capacity."

"But...?"

They don't answer right away, because their targets have stopped. There's a little food cart selling frozen desserts. Aziraphale orders, hands over the bits of plasticky paper the humans value so much. Takes ice creams from the vendor, passes one to Crowley.

"You ever had ice cream?" Kriddar asks.

"Of course not," they answer, immediately.

"Afraid it would tarnish the holiness of your ethereal person?" Kri thinks the pair has moved on enough, so she steps into the line. Elstael joins her.

"No, I've never eaten anything before. I told you this is the first time I've been to the physical plane."

"Oh." They wait, the angel looking over her head toward Crowley and Aziraphale, who have stopped to peer in some shop windows. "You want one, then?"

Elstael doesn't answer until she's next in line. "I suppose."

"Two vanillas, one plain, one with sprinkles," she orders, holding out some rather confused pound notes that had seconds before been unsuspecting scraps of paper in her pocket. "Loads of sprinkles."

Elstael eyes the money suspiciously, but says nothing. They take the plain cone in hesitating fingers and examine it as if looking for a hidden grenade.

"Either convince it not to melt or eat up quick," she says, taking a messy lick of her own and getting sprinkles on her face. Elstael looks satisfyingly horrified at her lack of manners.

They continue on down the street. It's hard to keep an eye on Crowley when she really wants to see the angel's reaction to ice cream, the first thing they'll ever have eaten.

Elstael takes a breath like they're bracing themselves for pain. Then, gingerly, stick their tongue out and touch the ice cream.

"It's cold!" they say, as if taking offense.

"Ice cream," Kri says, not holding in her laugh.

"Ah." They take a tiny bite off the top of it. "Hm." They swallow. "It's.. sweet."

"That's the point. It's dessert."

They're silent again for a while (Elstael may find it strange at first, but has no difficulty finishing the ice cream) as they pace behind Crowley and Aziraphale. The angel miracles their fingers clean and disposes of the wrapper neatly in a trash receptacle. Kri catches their eye and drops hers on the sidewalk.

"No!" they scold, and retrieve it with a glare. Kri grins and shrugs with her hands out, sticky fingers and all.

"Was it any good, then?" she asks.

"Don't litter," they say. "Yes, it was actually quite nice. Is all food like that?"

"Not at all. You got your sweet, your sour, savory, salty, spicy. Or any combination."

"How interesting."

"Yep, humans are fascinating. So back to the files," Kri says, unable to let it lie any longer. It's like a book she can't put down, fingers drawn to turning the pages until she finds out what happens. "You knew they'd been meeting, but...?"

"Ah. It just seemed - well, I was only a clerk, after all. I didn't have anything to do with collecting the information. No one asked. So I never brought it up." They pause again as their targets do. "I thought it was strange, though, an angel meeting a demon like that. I kept track, whenever I had to add anything to the file. And I suppose..."

Kri waits, the weft slipping out of the warp slowly, tortuously. Don't make me pull more, she thinks.

"I suppose I thought they were happy."

She quirks an eyebrow.

"I know it seems strange. They shouldn't be, should they? They’re opposites. But look at them." They gesture to the pair, standing at the base of the wide steps leading up to a museum. "They are happy, aren't they? Despite... everything."

"It appears so," she agrees.

"I didn't think it was wrong. And then after... well, what happened..."

"The failed apocalypse?" Kri supplies.

Elstael gives her a little sideways look. "Well, no. I mean after."

"What about after?"

The angel looks startled. "You don't know?"

This puts her ill at ease, that the angel knows something she doesn't. But she doesn't let that show. "I know what happened in Hell," she lies confidently.

"Well, I don't know about down there, but I heard Aziraphale was, er, escorted to Heaven to face his punishment, and he was able to stand in a hellfire inferno without it so much as singeing a hair out of place."

Kri feels a chill go down her spine. She had heard rumors to the same effect concerning Crowley, except with holy water, but she'd dismissed them as wild hyperbole. Demons couldn't survive holy water. And angels couldn't survive hellfire. Those were just facts.

But apparently they weren't. Not anymore.

"So that's why they want to keep an eye on him," Elstael finishes, not noticing her discomfort.

"Obviously," she says.

"But he hasn't done anything since then, has he? Neither of them have. They're just..." Here the angel sighs. It's a delicate, almost longing sigh, and it makes Kri's lip twitch in distaste. "Well, they're in love, aren't they?"

"Yeah, and my sinuses don't thank them for it." The two are going up the steps now, into the museum. She starts to follow them, but the angel stays put.

"Wait, won't they see us?"

Kri laughs. "They already know we're around. If they wanted their privacy, they should have tried harder to lose us. We know they can if they want to."

Still Elstael hesitates, so she shrugs. "I'm doing my job, featherbrains. See you later."

She leaves the angel at corner of the street and jogs up the steps.

--

The place is full of art. It is, in her opinion, staggeringly uninteresting. She would think that as a fellow demon Crowley would share said opinion, whatever company he was keeping these days, but he seems to be as engaged as Aziraphale. They trade quiet comments, laughing sometimes, silently observing at others. Some of Crowley's thoughts on the artists are properly unkind, which she approves of, but then sometimes Aziraphale agrees with him and adds his own biting, decidedly unangelic commentary as well, which is unsettling.

...stood in a hellfire inferno, they'd said. But Kri can feel the holy presence of him all the way across the exhibit hall. He's no fallen angel, and Crowley is still definitely a demon. The shiver revisits her spine and she thinks, the world really is different now, isn't it.

She loses them about halfway through the museum. Fair's fair, she decides, and starts to head back toward the entrance, when a hand clamps around the lapels of her jacket and throws her against a dimly lit wall. Her useless breath escapes her lungs in a squeak.

"You're following usssss," he hisses, and she presses herself back against the wall.

She's been trailing him for over a month now, and she's never been this close to him. She's seen him laugh, and make a ridiculous number of besotted faces at Aziraphale, and drink coffee and wine and eat ice cream and feed the ducks at the park. The only demonic thing she's really seen him do were the wards around his flat and the bookshop, and they weren't even nasty ones. The impression she had formed, given what she had observed, was that for being the Serpent of Eden he was seriously off his game, and therefore harmless.

She is hastily revising this opinion.

Back when she had first clocked him coming out of the bookshop, she had expected him to be a maelstrom of evil, but she'd thought he was more like a mosquito. Now, here, with one of his hands twisted in her jacket and the other planted by her head, slitted snake eyes just visible over the top of his sunglasses, he puts her more to mind of the fire in a forge - banked, but ready to be stoked to an inferno within seconds. She's not afraid of his rail-thin corporation, or even what he could do to her in a fight, but rather the concentrated, determined intensity of his occult aura. It's not vicious or hateful like some of the more powerful demons she's met, it doesn't make her want to cower like the one time she'd had to give a report to Lord Beelzebub, but he wasn't off his game, not in any way that mattered in a confrontation like this. If anyone were off their game, it was her. She doesn't think she's ever misjudged a target this badly.

Slowly, she raises her hands, empty and placating, and tries to keep her voice calm. "Just doing a job," she says.

Her honesty seems to surprise him. He narrows his eyes further. "Oh, that'ssss it, is it?"

"It is. Observe and report. That's all."

His poison-yellow gaze travels across her face. "Hm," he says, twisting his grip tighter. "And what if we don't want to be followed?"

She coughs. Bargaining has been a successful tactic for her in the past. "Discorporate me and they'll just send someone else. Maybe someone who won't back off if you give them the slip around exhibit hall C. Devil you know and all that."

His lips twitch. "Not a terrible offer," he says. "But you're asking me to trust a demon. That rarely works out, in my experience."

"I've got nothing against you. Or him," she adds. "This is a nice assignment. Nice city. Trust that I'm lazy and selfish." And scared out of my fucking wits right now, she doesn't say.

Gradually, the fingers on her jacket loosen, and he gives her a wry smirk. "You've got a point there."

She keeps her hands up even after he lets go.

"I doubt Downstairsss will be very happy if they hear I caught you." he says, pushing the sunglasses up his nose. "I'd keep your reports short and sweet."

"I'm not stupid," she says. "Told you I wanted to keep the job."

--

Elstael stops to read some advisory signs before descending onto the beach. Kri waits, because she knows if she doesn't that she'll be called back to hear what they're about and it's easier to get it all over with in one go.

"It's a marine protected area," the angel says after finishing one of them.

"Good for it," Kri says.

A group of young, brightly-clothed, slightly raucous people approach the stairs and stop at the top of them as they shuffle various belongings among themselves for some reason. A woman dressed rather more plainly comes up behind them and frowns that they're blocking the path. She's wearing an expression that would be a perfect textbook example of "local resident observes tourists and is Very Tired of it" had any language possessed a word for such a thing.

"No fires above the high tide line?" the angel reads. "What does that mean?"

Kri shrugs - she's not planning on starting any fires - but the woman answers them.

"There's not much sand here, usually," she says. "It's mostly rocks, and underneath the rocks there's driftwood, even though you can't see it. So if you start a fire where the high tide won't put it out and it starts the driftwood smoldering, you could catch the whole beach on fire."

"Oh!" Elstael looks distressed. "Has that actually happened?"

The woman nods. "Yeah, in the seventies, I think. Some teenagers started a big one down at the other end."

Elstael tries to look down at the beach, but the view is blocked by the cliff and the young people. "And where is the high tide line?"

"This time of year, it's right at the bottom of the rocks, on the sand. You can see where it leaves a line of seaweed and stuff. In the winter it's practically up to the base of the cliff." She frowns harder at the group, who have finally started their descent. "But hardly anyone visits in the winter."

"Bit wet for sightseers?" Kri asks. She's had assignments in this part of the world before, and remembers what the winters are like.

"A bit," the woman agrees.

"Thank you," Elstael says to her, and she gives them a mild smile and nod before disappearing down the stairs.

The angel takes a few moments to finish reading the fire sign. Kri waits for them to move before following.

The woman had been right about the amount of rocks. There are at least fifty feet of grey, round-tumbled stones in a messy slope down to the sand. They're mostly on the large side, some as big as a human head, and they both have to be careful to not turn their corporations' ankles on them.

It's windy closer to the ocean. Before too long Kri feels her skin getting salty-sticky and her hair tangling with itself. Still, the sun is just the right temperature and the constant hiss and crash of the waves is soothing. She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.

"What do you think?" she asks Elstael after a few beats of silence.

They turn their face into the wind. "I like it," they say. "It's very different from London, though."

"I'd say," Kri laughs. "Lots of places are different from London."

They turn bright, curious eyes to her. "Oh?"

"Well, yeah. Pretty much everywhere is different from everywhere else. Big cities tend to share some things, and small places do too, but everywhere is... unique."

"I didn't know." They start walking along the edge of the wet sand. "Heaven is more or less the same all over."

Hell isn't, Kri thinks. Hell is all sorts of uncomfortable differences - hot and cold, generally crowded but sometimes achingly desolate, dank, parching, filled with agonized screams or vicious whispers. It goes without saying that she tries not to think about it at all.

Instead, she points out a purple snail shell a little bit further on, and the angel inspects it curiously.

"This was an animal," they say, almost scandalized.

"Yeah. It was a snail." Kri points out the empty space inside the shell. "Not anymore."

"How sad," Elstael says, and they sound genuinely distressed about it.

"Circle of life, innit?" She shrugs. "You didn't kill it."

"I suppose," they say, bending to put the shell back on the ground.

"You can keep it," Kri says. "Take it as a souvenir. That's what people do at the beach."

The angel hesitates, the shell still pinched delicately between their fingers.

She chuckles at their indecision. "The snail isn't gonna want it back."

"It is beautiful," they say, straightening up.

Kri grins. They continue on down the beach, until they reach an outcropping of rock that stretches all the way into the water. There are tidepools there, and they inspect them for a while. A (living) relative of Elstael's shell leaves a squiggly trail in the sand in one, and intensely - almost neon - green anemones wave short tentacles in another. "Nice color," Kri compliments them. It's nothing compared to electric blue, but still a good effort.

As they peer closer at the other inhabitants of the rocks, the tide sweeps up unnoticed behind them and surges in around their ankles. They both yelp and leap away from the chilly water. Elstael looks around to see if their embarrassment was observed by anyone else, and Kri starts laughing. The angel joins in after a second.

Slowly, shaking waterlogged feet every few steps, they make their way to the sun-warmed rocks safely away from the waves. Kri sits and stretches her legs out in front of her, decides not to waste a miracle, and toes off her shoes to help them dry. Elstael copies her after a moment.

It's silly and simple and rather human, nothing either of them would have the chance to do in the course of their jobs, normally. But it's nice.

The sun sinks lower and paints the sky in fiery colors where it strains for the horizon. Above, the view into the firmament is all cool purples and blues, desaturated, soft. They are alone in the little corner of the beach, saltwater evaporating from their trousers and leaving behind crystals in the weave of the fabric and on their skin.

"The sign got me thinking of something," Elstael says, apropos of nothing, as per their usual.

"Marine protected area?" she asks, although she can't imagine what that would have to do with anything.

"No, no. About the fires."

Kri looks over at them. "What about the fires?"

The angel spreads their hands out, splaying their fingers across their knees. "The woman said the driftwood underneath the rocks, the stuff that you can't see, is the real danger."

Kri hums.

"It's sort of like us, isn't it?"

She blinks, frowns. "How so?"

"Ah, well..." They clear their throat. "Understand I'm not trying to insult you. But. You're not someone who's very important, er, Down There, are you?"

"I'll have you know that I'm quite insulted, Feathers." Kri makes a face of mock rage, and the angel laughs. "But yeah, I'd say that's fair."

"And I'm no one of import in Heaven. There are lots of other angels like me, just doing small jobs. Menial tasks, really. Are there lots of unimportant demons? Menial tasks in Hell?"

She blinks again, and thinks that she sees where this is going. "Yeah."

"And we were expected to fight, in the war with the Antichrist."

Kri remembers the sick feeling in her unnecessary stomach when she'd heard the call to arms, her travel orders to Meggido, and the guilty tsunami of relief she'd had when the whole thing had been called off. "Mm-hm."

"They need us to fight, even if they ignore us otherwise."

"I'd think so."

They reach down and crunch some salt out of their trousers. "But we don't want to."

"Not me," Kri whispers, almost afraid to say it aloud.

"Nor me." They lean their chin on their first, elbow propped on their knee. "We're already aflame with these ideas. So what if we catch some other unseen things on fire?"

Kri is silent for a long time, and Elstael lets her be. What they're saying... it's dangerous. More dangerous than what they've been doing, shirking their jobs and sending off half-fictional reports to their respective superiors. They're taking about rebellion, about revolution. About treason. Does the angel even know how dangerous that is? She glances over, sees the slight crease of skin at the edges of their eyes and between their brows. But of course they would.

"Would that... work?" Kri's voice is hushed, just audible over the susurration of the waves. "Are there angels who would, ah, catch fire?"

"There must be," they say firmly. "Look at me. And... him." They turn their head toward her, burnt-sugar eyes molten. "Aren't there demons who would? Look at you."

"And him," she echoes. She thinks of other demons in Hell, how she has never liked them. But now she wonders if that's by design. Hell is unpleasant, even for those who revel in its unpleasantness. It's really no surprise that its denizens aren't the best company. She'd be hard pressed to name someone who does actually enjoy their job, aside from the perhaps demons at the very top. She wonders what would happen if she showed them a little bit of Earth. A little mundanity, as a break from the exceptional torture that was the kingdom of the damned.

--

Kri doesn't quite understand what's going on when she gets there. There's a whole lot of people frozen in place, shimmering darkly with a demonic compulsion over them, and a very heavenly aura pulsing somewhere ahead of her, behind one of the doors. She can hear voices, a familiar rhythm of back-and-forth bickering, although it's more strained than normal. Then, loudly, "Where did you get that?!" overlaid with "Oh, no!" and a second later, the sharp retort of a handgun.

"FUCK!" Crowley spits, loud and agonized, and the compulsion vanishes like smoke. The people around her start to move, confused, angry. "FUCKING shit shit shit bloody hell-"

A flash of an angelic miracle makes her flinch, and Crowley continues to swear.

"Where is the Virgin?" one of the people asks. There are quite a lot of them, and the tenor of their minds sets her on edge. They are feverish with belief, zealous. They start toward the doors as a mob.

She thinks of several things in the space of hardly a second: Elstael, gingerly tasting an ice-cream. A demon and angel, hand in hand on the seashore. The wide sky and the quietness of a meadow, a yellowing paperback open on her knees. The oppressive weight of an infernal pen, searing words into decades of endless reports. Fog on the Thames. Shave ice melting in the bright Hawaiian sun. We should go someday. I'll show you.

She snaps her fingers, and the mob freezes.

The gravity of controlling so many minds at once makes her knees buckle, and she braces her hands on her thighs to stay upright. It's staggering, the determined force of the humans' consciousnesses, and she sucks in an unnecessary breath through her teeth. Her forte is not influence and control, not like this. She's all about indirectness, about deflecting glances like rain bouncing off an umbrella and easing human suspicions with a unremarkable smile. This is direct. Aggressive. They're fighting her, and she can think of nothing to soothe them. She's out of her depth.

Please hurry, she thinks. Whatever you're doing, hurry.

Another angelic miracle, stronger than the last, tasting like petrichor in the air. The cry of a child. "You won't remember this," Aziraphale says kindly, softly, but his voice is exhausted. "You'll wake up and all will be well."

"C'mon, angel," Crowley says. He sounds even worse. "We gotta hurry."

They step out of the middle door. Aziraphale is cradling a bundle in one arm and trying to support Crowley with the other. Crowley is leaning heavily on him, one hand mangled and bloody clutched to his chest. They freeze when they see her.

"Go," she rasps. "Go, go!"

They don't need telling twice. They start moving again, weaving their way quickly but unsteadily through the frozen bodies. As they go by, Aziraphale says, "Thank you so much, my dear, thank you," and she feels as if something brushes her shoulder though there's nothing there to see. A wing, she realizes, breathing in the passing ethereal energy almost against her will, glowing warm like sunlight, smelling like lilac and clover and ferns and running water. She feels stronger, the burden of the human minds lighter, and she gapes in amazement as they rush out the door.

She holds the humans for as long as she can, backing out of the room around them in an awkward shuffle as she tries to concentrate on both the metaphysical task of keeping minds still and the physical one of not running into bodies. She makes it out, lets go of the control and uses a much simpler miracle to lock them in. Almost immediately they start rattling and banging on the door.

The air outside boils molten with righteous fury.

Behind her, there is the well-tuned growl of a sports car. A woman is driving, not young but striking, with dark hair and dark eyes. Aziraphale bundles Crowley into the passenger seat, and Kri meets the demon's stare behind his sunglasses.

I understand now, she thinks. I understand.

He rolls down the window. "Get outta here!"

She gives him a sharp nod. The sky is starting to roil with bruised clouds, pregnant with divine lighting, and Aziraphale pulls the back door shut behind him. The woman peels out, and Kri starts running in the opposite direction. She thinks she hears someone call "good luck!" before they're gone.

She runs as fast as she's ever run before, but she's still close enough to feel the crack of the sky splitting and Heavenly wrath pouring down to Earth.

What did I do? Oh God, what did we do?

She is running so blindly away from the furious angelic presence behind her that she doesn't notice the one in front of her. Except it's not furious, it's Elstael.

"Kri?" they say, gripping her arms to keep her upright. "Kri, what-"

She has a plan. The beginnings of a plan. Well, less of a plan and more of an idea. But it's something.

"Can you-" she gasps, "can you smite me without actually, you know, smiting me?"

"What?!"

"Just singe me a bit. Or lop off an arm or something? Without killing me? C'mon, c'mon, quick!"

"I- uh, think so, yes," they answer. "But-"

"Do it!"

Elstael stares. There are angry voices coming from the direction of the building, angel and human. Kri thrums with impatience and panic.

"I don't want to hurt you," they say.

"It's fine," she says. "It's fine. It'll work out out. Tell them you chased me and fought me. You nearly got me, but I got away, right?"

"I don't want to hurt-"

"I let you get hit by a bus, fair's only fair."

Still they hesitate.

Kri twists her arms so her hands are mirroring Elstael's, resting just below the angel's elbows. "Trust me, please," she says, and means it.

Slowly, finally, they nod. Kri steps back, steeling herself for whatever smiting feels like. She's not sure - never experienced it, quite obviously - but it has to hurt.

Elstael lets their hands fall out to their sides, palms up, and raises their eyes, a picture of angelic holiness. They start to glow.

"Begone, demon," they say, and reach out to wrap elegant fingers around Kri's bicep. The glow immediately vanishes, but they keep their hand there.

It burns, but not like Falling at all - a clean, sharp, perfect fire that bites into her skin, muscles, bones, slicing like a million razor-sharp papercuts through her mortal corporation all the way down to her demonic self, a wave of holy pain rippling out from the angel's hold on her. She hears herself scream and Elstael's grip tightens. The burn stops advancing, but it smolders, from shoulder to fingertips. A good sign, that, she thinks. If her fingertips hurt it means she's still got fingertips, right?

"-sorry, sorry, sorry-" she realizes Elstael is saying, repeating it like a mantra.

"-'s'fine," she slurs. "Great. 'S great. Good job. Now. Just." She pushes herself upright, shaky, but determined, and also determinedly not looking at her arm. "Just tell 'em you chased me, right? You w're tryin' to protect the... the... the thing, 'n we... fought. 'N we'll meet back up wh'n'ev'r this blows over, right? 'Kay?"

"Yes, okay," they say.

She forms her un-smited hand into a thumbs-up and tries to smile at the angel. She probably looks wretched, but Elstael gives a watery laugh and smiles back.

"See y'later," she says, and lets herself sink into the ground that cracks apart to swallow her up, lets herself fall back into Hell.

--

The pain gets easier, Downstairs. She doesn't truly need her corporation down there, and with all the infernal energy around, it's easier to heal. All that said, an angelic near-smiting is nothing to sneeze at. She's still letting her arm hang limp when she's called to give her report. It goes over about as well as can be expected.

"How was I to know they were trying to steal the new Messiah or whatever blessed stunt they were trying to pull off?" She glares, covering the lie with indignation. Rightful indignation. "No one gave me any new info! I was just following him! That was my job!"

"You got yourself noticed by an angel," Regish scolds.

"Kinda hard not to, they were bloody everywhere," she mutters.

"And you lost him."

"Well I'm sorry I couldn't pay closer attention while I was being smote," she says, snappish. She has a risky thought - one that could help her, but potentially endanger everyone else. They're going to have to put the baby somewhere - either that, or disappear, and she doesn't think they'll do that. There are any number of places they could go on Earth, or even off Earth, unlikely as that would be. She just hopes she doesn't guess right.

"I think I heard the angel say something about Siberia."

Regish raises his eyebrows. "Which angel?"

"Which do you think? Crowley's... pet." She gathers all the disgust she feels at her current surroundings and infuses it into that single word. It seems to work, because Regish gives her a look that could almost be called commiserating.

"Siberia? You sure?"

"I heard him say the word Siberia, I don't know what he meant by it," she says. "That's all I got. But I can track them down again. Just send me back up."

He eyes her skeptically. "You want to go back?"

"To do my job, yeah! We can't let 'em get away."

Her artifice seemed to have worked, because three days later, when her arm is no longer stinging with holy fire, they send her back up the escalator and into London.

--

She goes straight to the bookshop. It won't look suspicious if they're watching her - obviously Crowley spends time there, so she's safe claiming she's looking for clues. It's still warded, and the windows still opaque to her eyes, so she lurks very obviously outside it until the door finally opens.

Aziraphale stands there inside the wards, looking cautious.

"You didn't send it to Siberia, did you?" she asks, not glancing at him at all, trusting that with his powers he can hear her across the street. "I'm not asking where, you don't have to trust me, just, I told them to look in Siberia. So if you sent it there, sorry, you've got a problem."

"Not Siberia," he says very quietly.

Her shoulders slump in relief. "Good. Great. Okay." She starts to move on - she'll go to Crowley's flat next, then the cottage, then back to LA - but his voice freezes her in her tracks.

"Thank you again for what you did. Would you, ah," he turns for a moment, looks over his shoulder. "Would you be so kind as to come in?"

She glances around. It's unlikely Hell is watching her - she's given them no reason to doubt her work, as far as she can tell. Still, the invitation feels enormous.

"Crowley says it's clear," Aziraphale reassures her. "But hurry, please."

She crosses the street and walks up to the door.

The bookshop still feels eye-wateringly good, but it provides no barrier to her entry. The angelic ward passes over her like a blanketful of static electricity, all sparks and crackles, and the demonic one slows her steps for an instant like she's forcing her way through mud. But then she's through, and she can finally see the inside of the shop.

There are books stacked everywhere - on proper shelves, on tables, on the floor. The place is all warm browns and golds and creams, like a box full of chocolate truffles, the kind that have the hard shell and the white chocolate drizzle and bits of actual gold leaf to make them fancier. She thinks maybe she can smell cocoa over the sugary-musty perfume of old paper and faded leather covers. It's wonderful. These aren't her kind of books, but she loves it all the same.

Absorbed as she is by finally seeing the interior of the shop, it takes her a moment to realize there are other people inside. Elstael is standing by a little round table, and Kri doesn't even try to hide the smile that stretches her face when she sees them. The angel smiles back with so much relief that Kri can practically taste it in the dusty air. Crowley, of course, is there too, sprawled across a plush chair and eyeing her with caution, and some of the humans that she's seen in Tadfield - the witch and her companion, and the former Antichrist.

"Er, hi," she says.

Crowley gets out of the chair, unfolding like some terrifying articulated origami, and starts to stalk toward them. "You sure we should trust this one, angel?"

"Yes," Elstael says firmly as Aziraphale opens his mouth to answer. They lift their chin bravely when Crowley shifts his gaze toward them.

"Well, no offense," he says, eyes unreadable behind the sunglasses, "but you don't have all that much experience with demons, do you?"

"With her I do." Elstael swallows nervously at his increased scrutiny but keeps their head high. A warmth like hot coffee spreads through her, but unlike coffee it doesn't stop at her stomach. It gets all the way to the tips of her fingers, she swears, and she grins in what she expects is a rather stupid way. For the moment, she can't care.

"Crowley, you saw what she did to help us," Aziraphale says as Crowley comes up to them. She notices that one of his hands is wrapped in a bandage, and she remembers the sound of a shot, and the bloody mess he'd been holding to his chest.

"She could be working for them, still."

"'She's' right here," Kri says, perturbed. "And I'm not. Working for them, I mean."

"Well, er." The human man next to the witch raises his hand slightly, as if he's in school asking a question. The witch gives him a withering, but fond, look, and he drops the hand. "That is, no offense, but... isn't that what you'd say that if you were?"

He has a point. She shrugs. "Dunno what I can say to convince you."

"What's your reason?"

She blinks. It's Adam, the former Antichrist, who has spoken. "I'm sorry?"

He's sitting in a rolling desk chair like it's a throne, the afternoon light making his curly hair glow. The effect is unsettling. "Why do you want to help?"

"I..." She doesn't answer right away. He's staring at her with a haughty sort of intensity, and she can't look away from his eyes. She takes a breath before launching into it, not because she needs air but because it gives her another second to collect her thoughts and she's always thought it gives the following words a bit more gravity. "I spent most of my time Downstairs, after... after the Fall. And it was... fine. Not good, obviously, it was terrible, but... it was what I had, so it was fine. And then about fifteen hundred years ago, I get my job up here. And it's way better than fine, up here. There's... there's sky, and weather, sunsets, trees. Animals that don't drool acid, rivers that aren't sulfur. And the humans are so... they're just so clever, aren't they? Making all sorts of things. And writing stories. Good and bad. Wonderful and terrible. I just... I like it." She feels like that wasn't coherent enough, like she's made a rambling mess of it all. "Er. I don't want it all to go down - or up - in flames, Earth. It's... well. It’s nice. I guess it's selfish, but, y'know. Demon."

"But it is true, isn't it?" Aziraphale says. He beams at her, and she feels, shockingly, pleased that he's pleased, and then quite unfortunately he claps a hand to her shoulder - the same one that had started healing in Hell but wasn't quite done yet.

She nearly falls over. Pain shoots down her arm and she lets out a choked wheeze, the ability to vocalize apparently punched out of her along with the ability to stand. In a fraction of a second Elstael is beside her, holding her up, and Aziraphale is apologizing profusely, hands fluttering about like a pair of agitated birds.

"It's fffffffine," she breathes, only the rough shape of the words and none of the voice behind them. At least, she hopes that's what comes out of her mouth - she's not too sure. "Just... not quite... hhhhhealed yet."

"Oh dear," he says, now twisting his hands together. "My dear, I'm so sorry. Healed from what?"

She takes a moment to compose herself and tilts her head questioningly toward Elstael. "Y'... didn't tell 'em?"

Elstael shakes their head. With a start, Kri realizes their hands are clasped around hers, fingers interlaced, both of Elstael's surrounding her own despite her black nails that she is convincing very hard right now not to be chitinous claws. It's warm and soft and... Well. Nice.

"After what happened with the Messiah, when I found Kri running away. She told me to smite her, and to tell Heaven that we had fought, to keep my cover." They grip her hand a little tighter. "’Just singe me a little or lop off an arm without killing me,’ I think you said."

Kri shrugs her uninjured shoulder. "Worked, didn't it?" Thankfully her voice has returned.

"Oh my," Aziraphale says. "That was... very dangerous."

"Not half," Crowley says, sounding a bit impressed.

"I figured it would be better to keep up appearances. Hell would believe I'd been caught by an angel, and Heaven could commend Elstael for nearly getting a demon."

"And it was quite a good idea," Aziraphale says. He smiles at her, still apologetically. "If we're going to do this, it will be invaluable to have inside information. Especially since Crowley and I, er, no longer do."

--

[writingforfun0714]

Overhearing a Conversation/Eavesdropping Trope Comparison Part 2/2

So I wanna finally get around to finishing Part 1/2 of this post so please check out the link before reading this post.

Warnings: Not a fic, contains spoilers for Bad Batch and Arcane, thoughts/opinions/headcanons, lemme know if I need to add more

While Part 1 of this trope comparison post is more about showing screenshots and writing out thoughts about both shows individually, I wanted this post (Part 2) to be more about the similarities and differences of both shows. To be honest, there were more differences than similarities (which is similar to the other comparison post about the ‘Left Behind trope’).

So let’s get into it:

To start with similarities, both Omega and Powder internalize what was said. The girls believe who they are causes problems (Omega being an unaltered Jango clone and Powder being a jinx/screw up).

The accuser in both situations feel like their opinions/thoughts aren’t being heard/valued. Echo feels that Hunter and the group should be doing more to fight the Empire (which would give Omega the life she deserves by removing the obvious threat). Mylo isn’t wrong when he says that Powder is a problem (though Vi also has a point when telling Mylo that Powder is younger compared to them).

I’d say that the last similarity between these 2 scenes would be during the confrontation. Both Omega and Powder use the words Echo and Mylo (respectively) used earlier with Omega saying they don’t have a normal life because of her and with Powder telling Vi that she was ‘twice the person at half her age’, something Mylo had mentioned earlier.

Now for the differences between the shows. Imo, the differences really make the whole ‘eavesdropping’ trope so different (with varying degrees of success).

While both Bad Batch and Arcane use the ‘eavesdropping’ trope, the execution is actually quite different, obviously because they are 2 very different stories.

In Bad Batch, Omega overhears the entire conversation between Echo and Hunter, while in Arcane, Powder only overhears half the conversation between Vi and Mylo. This is important to both girls’ character in different ways. Omega hearing all of the convo allows her to interpret CF99s situation in her own way (mostly internalizing—‘you don’t have a normal life because of me’) while Powder only hearing half the convo is more about foreshadowing for her character. Powder left when she heard Vi agree with Mylo, missing the part where Vi stuck up for her and even accused Mylo of being the screw up. It’s a great foreshadowing moment for ep3 when Vi tries going back for Powder only to be taken by Marcus (which is something Powder didn’t know, believing to be abandoned by Vi at that point).

The second difference would be the actual conversation between the ‘accusers’ (Echo/Hunter and Vi/Mylo). Echo’s convo with Hunter seems to be about their motivations going forward/the direction of the squad (Hunter wanting to hide and Echo wanting to fight the Empire) rather than Omega herself (yes Echo does say ‘our lives are like this because of Omega’) but honestly, I think he was really only talking about the eps in S1 with the bounty hunters (ep4, 8/9). Meanwhile, Mylo and Vi actually talk about Powder and how she affected the situation (Powder hears Mylo tell Vi ‘she’s a problem’ and Vi tells Mylo that ‘there’s a bunch of things Powder just can’t do’).

The third difference would also be that Echo has a differing goal than the group while Mylo doesn’t. I’d say that Mylo even looks up to and wants Vi’s affection/support just like Powder, but often gets shot down by Vi (Vi kicks the door open when Mylo takes too long picking the lock and she turns on him during the 2nd half of the convo for valid reasons).

Another difference could be the girl’s reaction. When Omega overhears Echo, she stays in her room and hugs Lula. Yes, she’s clearly upset, but I also think Omega is also frustrated and possibly even confused (about Echo’s motivations). It’s a mix of emotions, whereas Powder is just upset. The situation Omega and CF99 are in seems new to all of them as it should. It’s a time of change. Contrasted to Powder, who is purely upset because this is something she’s heard before and clearly has related self-esteem issues.

The last difference I noticed was the problems the ‘accusers’ have with their respective girls is that one is fixable and one is not. Powder obviously trained (and already being an excellent shot) to get to where she was in Acts 2-3. She becomes capable as she gets older and is able to hold her own against most (she loses twice and both times it’s to Ekko). Whereas Omega is an unaltered Jango Fett clone. Bounty hunters are after her because of who she is. She can’t change the fact that she’s a clone.

That’s it for the similarities and differences between the shows/characters having the same trope of eavesdropping/overhearing a conversation. While I prefer Arcane’s version over Bad Batch’s, I will say that Omega’s reaction isn’t bad. I wish her emotions were a bit more intense since she is just a kid and I loved seeing her reaction in the Zillobeast ep to Tech saying that it ate the crew. I know some of you didn’t like that little part, but I loved it. It really shows that she is just a kid imo (I mean yeah the VA is a little off, but it makes sense that Omega would be scared).

But overall, I liked how both shows managed to pull off something totally different using the same eavesdropping/overhearing a conversation trope.

Thanks for reading💕

[chainofclovers]

Ted Lasso 2x8 thoughts

I am so lucky that the creators of Ted Lasso decided to make this entire show specifically for me. #blessed

If last week felt like a bit of breathing room (albeit tense, poignant, character-progressing breathing room) with distinct narrative lines, this week’s episode was a chaotic yet tightly-written swirl of pain and hope and sadness! No neat subject headers for this one, y’all. Just my brain and heart in the inadequate form of a bulleted list. It is the medium available to me at this time.

I am going to remember the moment when Ted calls Sharon and tells her his father killed himself for the rest of my life.

(I could say a bunch of stuff about his face and what he says and how he tries to hide his tears from Beard right after and how insanely much I adore this character and ahhhhhhhh but I’m just going to leave that scene there in our collective memories.)

Jamie. JAMIE. Higgins has given some great advice about love on this show, but his musings about his up-and-down relationship with his own father were not helpful in the context of Jamie’s dad, who is an abusive piece of shit. I really adore that all of the main AFC Richmond staff members are realistically a bit hit-or-miss with their advice and life philosophies (some are mostly miss this season, of course).

And I am completely in awe of the moment when Jamie punches his father. The way he just stands there after Beard kicks his dad out of the locker room. The way you can hear a pin drop. And Roy—Roy who is learning in so many areas of his life about his influence on people, learning that the things he needs aren’t necessarily the same as the things other people need—is the one to cross the room and hug him. Hold him, really, with the tenderness Ted used when he hugged Rebecca outside the gala in 1x4. God.

I’ve thought a lot about how s1 was about giving people a soft place to land. There’s always an angel there when you need one. There’s always an opportunity to be kind. If you look for someone, you find them. If you look for the good in someone, you find the good. And as everyone works through their individual journeys in s2, that can’t always be the case anymore. But there are still so many moments of angels on this show, and it’s not about chance and serendipity and fate [not that it was about that in s1] but about the effort it takes to become someone who can be there for someone else. Or who can be there for yourself. I’m so proud of Jamie for physically fighting back against his father. I’m so proud of Roy for being the one who recognized what Jamie needed.

I have every feeling in the world about how Ted is almost totally frozen both times (s1 and s2) he witnesses Jamie’s father abusing him. In s1, he was still there for Jamie after, and I have every reason to believe he’ll be there for Jamie after this incident as well, but that frozen stance HURTS. He’s in so deep with his pain about his own father that it’s like he physically cannot snap out of it to act in the moment. It seems entirely outside of his control, and it breaks my heart, because Ted wants so badly to be a good father, a good coach, a good friend, a good partner, a good patient. He’s there for people in all kinds of ways, even in his current less-than-capable state. He takes care of Sharon post-concussion and even gets her a new bike! During the disastrous match at Wembley his coaching is ineffectual and everything is chaos but he’s the last one standing on the pitch! But this really awful thing keeps happening to Jamie and Ted is just…frozen in the face of it. Like one of those nightmares where you’re running in place.

The frozen-in-place nightmare also kind of applies to the way the total separation between Ted and Rebecca feels, too. I have never for a moment doubted the writers’ intentions in setting these characters up as soulmates on parallel journeys, and I’m actually really digging (on a story level) how disconnected they are right now. It is IMPRESSIVE that their absence in each other’s lives feels like such a glaring loss, one we cannot forget even as there are so many other things happening onscreen. It is 100% not just shipper goggles making me process information about Ted while thinking about Rebecca and information about Rebecca while thinking about Ted. I know there are a lot of really angry and frustrated people in the fandom right now (both T/R shippers and T/R antis and non-shipping fans who don’t get why s2 is different from s1) and while I understand being frustrated by choices characters make, and frustrated by the feelings the show makes us feel that we just want to feel more of or less of, I continue to agree with pretty much every narrative choice happening right now.

Agreeing with the narrative like this?! This is such a unique experience for me as a viewer—to feel like I’m on a ride that is at once absolutely wild and incredibly sensible and well-crafted, and to feel simultaneously completely invested and anticipatory and speculative but also totally willing to trust where it goes. I long for Ted and Beard to really talk. I long for Ted and Rebecca to stop missing each other. I long for Roy to have a serious conversation with Ted about what’s happening with him. I long for Keeley to find a vocation, something that drives her beyond her projects. I long for so many things! But I wouldn’t long for them if this show was less good. If the show was less good, I wouldn’t have a wish list a mile long because I wouldn’t be so attuned to the details and potential lurking in every scene. THIS IS SUCH A GOOD SHOW, I CANNOT HANDLE IT, I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

(To that end, a great deal of the Ted Lasso tag and so many Twitter reactions reactions to the show feel super stressful right now and I am kind of just trying not to look?! I love this fandom so much because of the amazing conversations that happen and because of brilliant fic and because there are some awesome people I never would have encountered were it not for this show. That little bubble is wonderful and I’d stay in this fandom no matter what in order to keep experiencing those things. But fans’ catastrophic reactions to every little thing that happens, every little choice a character makes that isn’t the “perfect” choice? The takeaway that the writers—on this show of all shows—wake up in the morning ready for another day of torturing shippers rather than another day of writing a beautiful story they genuinely want to write? I do not enjoy those parts at all. I would like to opt out of those parts. I’m having such a magical experience watching this show and talking about this show and listening about this show and writing about this show with a variety of people who feel all kinds of ways. I truly wish I could somehow transfer the energy of this experience onto all the people who are hating it right now. I don’t mind at all that people are having vastly different reactions to this show and are sharing their honest feelings, including the really angry ones (I can appreciate something and disagree with it!), and I get that sometimes the language of fannish reactions is intentionally, ironically hyperbolic. But there feels like this very serious trend of people legitimately thinking writers on this show are targeting shippers and have lost respect for their characters, and I just feel like an alien from another planet when I see that stuff. I guess I just feel like people make art because they want their art to be visible to other people and to themselves, but that doesn’t typically involve specifically catering to or torturing a subset of that audience?)

I am more fascinated by Sharon Fieldstone than ever before. I have been running through every single action with her and Ted so many times. The confirmation that she’s living in club-provided housing (that could not look more different from Ted’s club-provided flat). Ted clearly noticing the many bottles. Sharon’s face while she tries to casually recycle them. (Sharon could legitimately have a more problematic relationship with alcohol than Ted does, and I find that extremely interesting and am very curious to find out what happens there.) Sharon leaving him voice notes while she’s concussed, probably because she’d been thinking about him shortly before the accident. The way Ted calls her and does all the funny voices and it’s not frustrating like all the times he uses his silliness and allusions to deflect during their prior conversations because this time, those behaviors are just a part of him showing care for another person. The way they stretch each other, and Ted is still wrong about the things he’s been wrong about, but they both grow all the same.

While it is pretty much impossible for me to imagine that this show would include an actual romantic relationship between Ted and Sharon (it would be beyond unethical even if they could write it well, and Sharon in particular is so professional and committed to her work, and it would erase so much of the powerful message about the importance of seeking therapy from a professional who is not your friend or partner, and I would totally hate it), watching this episode was the first moment I had this queasy little feeling that it’s possible that Ted could end up developing really complicated feelings about Sharon since, at this point, he’s been honest with her about things he’s hardly spoken about before and you can really form an attachment to people you feel safe with in a new way. (I mean, I’m sure Michelle knows what happened with Ted’s father, but I’m not even certain if Beard does.) He’s so broken right now, and Sharon is such a great person and so different from anyone else in his life (even though Rebecca is also different, and Beard is also different, and Roy is also different, and so on), that I could see things getting really fuzzy for him. I continue to have faith in the way the storylines on this show are handled. I’m just. Putting this here.

(In saying that, though, I also wanna make it really clear that I don’t just automatically assume anytime a new female character is introduced that they’re going to end up becoming a romantic complication. Like, Phoebe is allowed to have a teacher who is an attractive woman and AFC Richmond is allowed to have a sports psychologist who is an attractive woman and Keeley is allowed to talk to Jamie Tartt without it threatening what she has with Roy and all these people can exist as human beings without the introduction of romantic drama.)

Isaac gives every player one haircut per season, OH MY GOD. The JOY during the haircut scene. YES.

KEELEY AND REBECCA. Their text thread. The affirming video call right before Rebecca goes into the restaurant. The way Keeley sits all snuggled up against Rebecca in her office.

I was pretty thoroughly spoiled for the Sam and Rebecca plot through 2x8, and I was bracing for something far more problematic and tortured than what happens in this episode. The words I would use to describe their scenes: awkward, cute, cringy, and understandable. There are a million reasons why this relationship isn’t sustainable, but I felt completely understanding of both their choices here. This show has a lot of thesis statements, but I keep going back to the idea from 2x1 that there are people who enter your life to help you get to the next point, and I think it’s entirely possible that Sam and Rebecca will mutually be that for each other.

I find comparisons between Rupert and Rebecca super upsetting. There are absolutely meaningful things to say about the irony of ending up in a situation with an uncomfortable resemblance to certain taboo elements of an ex’s situation. But that ex is abusive and manipulative and cruel and Rebecca has exhibited NONE of those behaviors, and it makes me really sad to think that people feel that the writers on this show have betrayed Rebecca in giving her this storyline.

As always, I reserve the right to keep blathering about this show. I’ve had a headache for a couple of days, but my head is also so full of 2x8 thoughts that I couldn’t keep them in even if the circumstances for writing this were not ideal. I kind of hate that I’ve included frustrated fandom thoughts within the analysis of what I felt was an absolutely gorgeous, complicated, heartbreaking, near-perfect episode of television, but if ya can’t be a little dramatic on your own tumblr while you’re feeling raw and under the weather, where can ya?

[ohheyalex]

we’ll figure it out together// a dickkory fic

A/N: this fic came to me because i of course wanted to see a scene between kory and dick in episode 10 of s3  while they're in the car on the way to turn themselves in which in the episode it ends up being a shitshow of course. so this is me writing what i wanted to see and ultimately what should've happened in my eyes. so it obviously doesn't follow what actually happened in the show 🙃 i thought that i had written way more but i still hope whoever reads this that you enjoy it, also the gif is also from s1 i know but i loved it 🥰

Summary: While on their way to turn themselves into the GCPD, Dick realizes the many mistakes he’s made and at the top of the list are not being there for Kory and the team.

Kory’s already sitting in the passenger seat when Dick walks up to the SUV. He can’t help but take a moment to just look at her. She’s completely lost in her thoughts and it gives him time to admire this gorgeous woman in front of him. Kory’s head then turns to him and a smile spreads on her face but he can tell that she’s forcing it. She’s apprehensive that much he can tell and fuck, so is he. 

What they’re about to do isn’t sitting right with him. He put them in this position, bringing them here to help was a mistake. 

Coming back to Gotham was a mistake, he finally realizes.

Dick quickly opens the door and slides into the driver’s seat. He’s quiet for a few minutes, gloved hands flexing over the wheel contemplating if he wants to say this right now. He swallows his words down and he feels like shit because this team, this family deserves so much better from their leader.

He starts the car and presses the code to open up the entrance to the bat cave. And a few minutes later he’s on the road into Gotham City.

It’s been five minutes since they started driving and his grip on the wheel is tight. His heart is beating so hard that he can feel like it’s going to burst through his chest. 

Kory has been so caught up in her own mind that she barely noticed Dick silently freaking out. 

She really can’t seem to catch a break with all these visions taking over her body. She hates not knowing what’s going on and she’s getting tired of it. Kory can’t trust her sister completely and it’s in the back of her mind that having her so close will only result in her own downfall at some point.

Dick finally breaks the silence and he all but blurts out, “This is a stupid fucking idea right?” He’s been holding that in ever since he said it an hour ago to the team.

Kory looks at him and she can see how his eyes are darting across the street before him, he’s anxious and she can see the start of a panic attack and it’s surprising her. He seemed so confident that all of this would work out and that there was nothing to worry about.

She takes a minute to answer, deciding to just be honest at this point, “It is.” Kory nods.

Dick can’t help but let out a laugh at her response but then he recovers quickly, “How come you didn’t say anything back there? You agreed with me.” He asks.

Kory looks down, fiddling with her rings as she mulls over how she’s going to answer this question.

She allows herself to just tell him exactly what’s on her mind, “I don’t know Dick. I mean you’re going to do whatever you want anyway, we both know that. And no matter what I say it doesn’t matter in the end. Plus I’ve got my own shit going on and what’s been happening to me lately has been fucking scaring me.” Kory snaps and Dick is momentarily stunned by what she just said.

And even if it stings he can’t help but see the truth in her words. Dick wants to make this right to her and everyone else.

“You’re right. I keep doing that and I don’t know maybe it’s the fact that it’s one of the many things that I picked up from Bruce. He rarely asked for my input on missions, I usually just went along with whatever he said until I didn't.” Dick looks out at the view of Gotham City, it’s dark and cold like it always is and it hits him even more that he made the mistake of coming back to Gotham.

He continues, “I didn’t want to be like that to the team, to you. I respect your opinion and I’m sorry that I keep failing you all. I’ve been going into this situation with blinders on. I haven’t truly appreciated this team, this family. Especially what you are to me and I’m sorry.”

Dick can't help himself when he finishes with, “What’s going on that you haven’t told me?” This is most certainly the worst time to have this conversation but it doesn’t matter to him because it needs to be done. 

And he could be irritating like that.

He looks to his side and he sees her continuing to twist one of her rings on her middle finger, her chest rising a lot faster and her eyes seem so sad to him. Kory hasn’t even looked at him the entire conversation while he’s been risking an accident with how much his eyes weren’t on the road but on this  pretty alien princess.

Dick can’t help it, he snatches off his glove and reaches over to her lap grasping her hand in his. Their fingers instantly interlock with each other almost instinctively as if this was something they’ve always done.

Dick and Kory both feel something jolt between their palms, almost like being shocked. But instead of them drawing their hands back, it made them tighten their hold onto each other even more.

When they lock eyes, he sees a single tear come down that beautiful face of hers and it breaks his heart that he’s been so neglectful of Kory.

She sniffles and clears her throat before speaking,“I’ll tell you everything but we need to focus on what’s about to happen right now and we have to realize that this can go very wrong.” Kory looks at him and the look on her face tells him that she absolutely will. But he needs to know because he needs to do right by her for once and when he looks into her eyes the words he plans on saying to her don’t ever come out.   

Instead he says, “So what do you want to do?”

Kory turns her body fully towards him while still keeping hold of his hand, “I don’t think we should turn ourselves in. We need to find another way to end this before we lose more of our family. We need to figure this out together, Dick. All of us.” Her green eyes stare deeply into his.

She’s right, of course she is. And Dick realizes that his past and Gotham don't define him, not as a person and not as a hero. These people have become his family and they’re the reason he’s alive. He’s going to be a better leader, a better team partner and a better man. And he’s going to get to the bottom of what’s going on with Kory, he decides.

He squeezes her hand that is still tightly intertwined with his before pressing down the left signal light, alerting the team that they were taking a detour. 

Dick turns and gives Kory one of his bright smiles that whenever directed at her, she couldn’t help but feel giddy and says, “We’ll figure it out together.”

fin...

for now 

[askandsmile]

i got all y'all's messages and i do think i have more to say, but at the same time i'm just like 🥴️🥴️🥴️

this season isn't great, but this episode was terrible. evan is a terrible writer. he's also a fucked up troll. he likes that he's the b*rchie king, he likes b*rchie, he projects onto them. and truly, the less we try to explain anything about this, the better.

i think i need to wait and watch what comes next (from better writer's hands tbh) until i say anything else regarding canon.

but long post ahead, cause i've been wanting to address something that it's not even coherent, but it's just making me insane lol.

we have 6 episodes ahead of us. 6 weeks. if you guys freak out with every single thing that happens, no one is going to enjoy anything anymore.

i don't have spoilers. all the spoilers i had, from when i was in the clubhouse with evan, i gave to you. the way i read the interviews, i told you. i don't have anything else to add. i never had inside info or anything like that, all my speculations were based on rumors going around *and* the bts we got.

all that i could speculate i already did.

"oh, but what if--"

well. when s4 ended, i said, "if they're gonna make veronica look like archie's second choice, i'm not going to watch s5 live". i carried on watching because they didn't, they made it quite clear that veronica is archie's first choice seven years later.

i'm saying it again, "if they're gonna make varchie go through some b*rchie drama/bullshit again, i'm not going to watch s6 live."

if i do watch it, it'll be the same by the end of it if they get a s7. you have to go episode by episode with this show until the entire journey makes sense.

that's all i can do! that's all i can control. that's all you guys can control: the time and dedication you're willing to give to this show.

(i write a fic that's never-ending and even with roughly 4 readers left, i am pushing through because i want to finish it. this is the time and dedication i'm willing to give to this show, writing this fic to those who still enjoy it and to myself, and to varchie.)

so my suggestion now is, let's watch the episodes. it's 6 weeks. are you going to be anxious for 4-5 out of 6 weeks because of something that maybe, possibly, perhaps will happen? are you going to try to make me and other people anxious because you are? i'm choosing, at this point, to trust my ship and the story they've been telling about them.

i know it's harder for bugheads at the moment (reminder that i, myself, am not one although i did love them back in s1 and do support their relationship in the core four context) because they've been dealing with another love interest, on top of cole and lili's breakup, on top of not getting a lot of content, or bts, etc, etc.

but as a varchie shipper...guys, i've been there!

i have seen reggie tell veronica they could be endgame. i have seen archie dance a duet with josie saying he'd fight for her. i have seen archie writing a song to someone else. i have seen veronica getting married to another guy, and then possibly sleep with him after sort of maybe getting back together with archie. trust me, no one in this fandom knows better what you guys are going through right now.

so yes, maybe jabitha will date, or maybe they won't. maybe bh will get back together this season, maybe they won't. it doesn't mean the end of bughead, not at all. look at all the shit other ships have been through (even b*rchies, really). you guys are fine.

is the show good right now? no, it's not. i thought it wasn't so bad until 5x08 (even with the b*rchie thing) but then it just went downhill, and 5x13 was the worst episode ever. no wonder it had 0.7 ratings. but like, does that mean it will stay so bad? i don't know. i haven't watched 5x14, 5x15, 5x16, etc. i don't know what's coming. it might be great! it might suck.

and you guys don't get it, half the varchie fandom left in s3 because there was no sight of varchie anywhere, and then we were pleasantly surprised with the best build up ever in s3C. but you know what? sometimes i wish varchie hadn't gotten back together then! so we would see more of that buildup, some actual reaction from archie seeing veronica choose reggie instead of him, etc. it would've opened a sea of possibilities for a good story.

and whether you like it or not, this is giving more space for other characters to be around. they're not developing them. they're not writing them well. but you can't deny that we have seen more of toni, reggie, fangs, even kevin and cheryl, than ever since...ever.

and it's okay if you just watch for your ship. but the show, and the writers, are not worried about you shdhshd. i think there has been a misconception about that. the ships exist within the show, and this season feels so weird because the core four is apart and bh is apart, but the show is ultimately about the characters and their good/bad decisions.

so, thinking about the characters, ask yourself: is archie in conditions to be with veronica right now? is betty in conditions to be with jughead right now? jug and archie are in their way to healing, it looks like, but betty still isn't. is veronica in conditions to be committed again atm? i don't know. will this change in a couple of episodes? maybe!

and it's same for other characters. choni are going through the exact same thing bh is, they just don't have the impending doom that is b*rchie hovering above, but i guess no one doubts choni.

but imagine if they get back to choni and just give them a few throw away lines and boom, it's all magically fixed. wouldn't they feel betrayed? don't you enjoy the aspect that bh is taking time for this reunion after they were completely shattered? i know i would've written varchie differently if i could.

anyway. it's useless to think "oh, zalben said this, evan said that, ras said this" when we can't control what they say, or how they think. we can only interpret it (90% of the time i've been right about them but whatever) and we can only watch the show in front of us and absorb something from that.

(which is hard when the episode sucks, but it's what we can do).

all this freaking out is making me stop enjoying the show, and the fandom. it's not giving anyone any joy. you guys have to calm down and i'm not being dismissive of how much a tv show can bring anxiety, but the only thing you can do is trust the process.

bughead has been a solid thing for 4 seasons. it's their first major problem. varchie has been not that solid but very, very present for 4 seasons. b*rchie has been whatever it has been for 4 seasons. jabitha is a new ship, but it's around now... but hasn't even really happened yet. like, all these characters have their stories to tell among them, and if we don't enjoy the road they take, we can only try to detach ourselves.

okay, i guess, that's it. i'm not sure if i make any sense, but i'm so exhausted of people not trusting what's being shown to them and only thinking about zalben, bdaily takes, evan, ras, yadayada, who the rvd writers liked on twitter, like... c'mon.

[baggebythesea]

In a peacetime modern AU of SPOP where the characters are fans of a show similar to our SPOP, how would they engage in fandom? For example: Who would ship whom? Who would write fic or draw art? Who would write or draw smut?? Who would have a wall of theories with evidence connected by a web of threads? Who would do their own thing shipping a rare pair and who would be a card carrying popular ship shipper? Who would strongly empathise with their parallel character and who would just not get them at all? Would anyone cosplay? Which older adult would shock the young'uns by saying 'Well I wouldn't say no...' as they sip their tea from the doorway? (Obviously answer as much or as little as you like!)

Ooooh! Great ask.

Glimmer declares the show the best thing ever (because it's pink and princessy and kicks ass), and the best friend squad watches it religiously. Adora doesn't really get what the big deal with shipping is supposed to be, but she think it's neat that Netossa and Spinnerella is a couple. Lowkey ships Glimmer with Bow because she likes the idea of childhood friends falling in love with each other. Also, she really likes it when the title character gets a horse. Hangs out a lot in fandom space but doesn't really produce content, at least until Bow and Glimmer manages to talk her into writing down some of her many, many theories of how the show will turn out and just what the logistics network through the whispering woods are supposed to look like. She secretly worries when one of her posts don't get as much attention as the last one.

Bow is just hung up on poor Catra and want for her to get some love. Mostly he cheers on Scorpia, but he would ship Catra with Adora or even Double Trouble in desperation for someone to take the cat away from the hole she spend most of the series in. He takes up sewing and makes a point of cosplaying every single princess. Comments on everyone's fanfic and likes everyone's posts.

Glimmer sees a bit of herself in Catra (because she too knows the pain of having a mother who doesn't understand her). She totally ships the cat-girl with the glitter princess and writes really messed up fanfics about them. So much passion. So much delicious, delicious self-destruction. Practically drools at the end of season 4 and all the angst that goes down there. She regularly asks Bow to beta read and traumatises him badly. Gets into fan-fights on social media about stupid shit. Cosplays Catra on a con and makes out with a Glimmer cosplayer.

Angella vaguely recalls the first show from when she was young and earns some much needed mom-points with Glimmer when she digs up a mint condition original She-Ra+Swift Wind toy from a carefully labelled box in the basement. She ships Glimmer with Bow because she really likes that boy. Micah used to watch the show as a kid and had a bit of a crush on the original She-Ra. Ships Bow with Sea Hawk and cheerfully fills the hashtag #SeaBow with memes at least a decade out of fashion. Mortifies his daughter when he take them to a con and insists on cosplaying as Hordak. Ends up in the bar together with George and Lance and sings karaoke to My Little Pony-songs.

George and Lance don't really get the show but are happy to take the kids to con. Cosplays as characters from old Belgian comics.

Catra thinks the show is silly (and watches every episode passionately. Shut up. Just humouring Scorpia, is all). She thinks the Catra character in the show is a wimp, but ships her with Double Trouble because she likes it when villains get their way. Draws really good fanart. A bit of a troll on social media because its so fun to rile up people like Glimmer.

Scorpia ships Catra and Adora and cries just as much as Bow in the First One's Temple part of season 1. She is completely floored by the large, femme and kinda clumsy Scorpia character hooking up with the beautiful, beautiful Perfuma because... um... Writes really bad but 100% heartfelt self insert fanfics. Draws stick figures of Perfuma and Scorpia holding hands. Reads and re-reads her favourite fanfics until her eyes are red from crying and in the end leaves a shy little "it was good"-comment for the last chapter. Tries to work up the courage to go to a con and talk to other fans. Wants to cosplay but has too bad self esteem.

Entrapta thinks the robots are unscientific for reasons she is happy to write hundreds of blog posts about. Ships Darla with the Velvet Glove (the word 'docking' is used extensively). Considers Hordak a total hottie and draws really - and I mean really - explicit fan art. Spends her first convention on the parking lot trying to fix her Emily cosplay.

Lonnie rage-quits watching the show the moment Adora leaves the Horde but thinks Adora and Mermista should just do it already.

Kyle ships Bow with an OC named Lyle who everyone likes and no one makes fun of. Has written a ten chapter fanfic which no one has commented.

Rogelio ships Tung Lashor with Sea Hawk. His fanart can melt through steel.

Sea Hawk ships EVERYONE with Merm-iiiiiiiiiista. Runs ten different fan-events simultaneously. Mermista just ships Adora with Lonnie or whatever. They do duo-cosplay on cons, much to Mermista's embarrassment.

Perfuma ships Entrapta with Hordak, writes post after post exploring their psychosocial dynamic and is downright gleeful when it becomes canon. Spends the cons friend-momming on the rest of the group and makes sure they are all hydrated.

Frosta thinks shipping is stupid and want to see more of princesses teaming up and beating the shit out of the bad guys with the power of friendship. Also has a really detailed backstory for her OC. Only ask if you have plenty of time. Has a pretty good Glimmer cosplay.

Huntara ships Juliette with Castaspella and writes surprisingly sweet fics about them crushing on each other. Keeps order on social media.

Castaspella ships Shadow Weaver with Angella and writes fanfic that could easily be published as high class erotica. She's a really good commentor on other people's fics, giving tons of support and little constructive hints where she feels it might be well received.

Juliette has better things to do than watching a children's cartoon, but she does enjoy some of Castaspella's stories.

Spinnerella ships Catra and Adora and is just so proud when it turns out to be canon. Tells everyone who wants to listen how little representation was available in her first fandom and how far things have come.

Netossa ships Adora and Mermista and draws really hot fanart of them making out in gym showers and the like. Prefers modern aus and couldn't care less about canon as long as it gives her hot characters to play with.

Shadow Weaver doesn't ship anyone because no one is worthy of the love of Adora who is the only worthwhile character. Writes a 40+ chapter story about a badly out-of-character Adora who takes over the Horde and laughs at her enemies from the throne. Is enraged when people dare having the wrong opinion about things but can't tell them so because she feels social media is beneath her. Secretly reads Castaspella's fanfic.

Horde Prime ships Horde Prime with Shadow Weaver. She is written completely out of character in a rather insulting and sexist way. Completely insufferable on social media and insist on everyone signing up to his headcanon.

Hordak says he doesn't ship anyone because romance is silly. Cries over Adora's redemption arc when he thinks no one watches and ships her with Glimmer because he just wants to the poor, rejected Horde soldier lost in a strange land she doesn't understand to get some love and kindness.

Wrong Hordak ships Scorpia with Perfuma because love finds a way. Draws the purest fluff you'll ever see.

Double Trouble trolls social media at every turn and gleefully ships the most messed up shit they can think of. Shadow Weaver and Perfuma, Catra and Sea Hawk, Angella and Hordak, Horde Prime and Swift Wind... Also ships the characters they deem to have most dramatic potential to derail the story such as Entrapta and Hordak, Glimmer and Catra, Glimmer and Double Trouble... kinda has a low key crush on the sparkly character but denies it if anyone asks. Really good at cosplay and runs a tutorial at the cons.

Swift Wind thinks there are too few horse characters. Ships Swift Wind with Rainbow Dash.

Light Hope only ships canon pairings because by definition canon is the only thing that is valid. Writes long, convoluted predictions that she updates after every episode. She gets an existential crisis when her predictions don't pan out in canon.

Mara ships Adora and Glimmer. Still gets hot and fussy every time she thinks of the s1 hot spring scene. Wants the hardworking perfectionist to get love.

Razz write novel length stories where she ship a character mentioned in passing in an unpublished Dickens novel with her old middle school math teacher. No one has any idea what she is going on about or why she posts it in the she-ra tag, but her stories are good and she's a complete delight at cons, so she's welcome in the fandom.