#loved-the-stars-too-fondly

[hobgoblinsandpeachfuzz]

I just love @pandamasky 's Bilal

[rose-s-587]

the stars too fondly 🤝 that one supercorp fic i read that i don’t remember the name of

AIs in love

[jac-is-procrastinating-again]

Chapter 3: In which the Bentley is a little sweetheart and Crowley is careless.

Chapter 3, first part thereof! As ever, link at the bottom if you want to read the rest, :)

= = = =

Crowley drove and drove, numb to distance, and blind to what was about him. As a demon, he didn’t need to breathe, but it was just as well.  His chest was so tight he couldn’t have inhaled if he wanted to.

These past few years, being with Aziraphale so much, had been idyllic. He’d indulged himself by taking on more and more human characteristics, idly trying to find out what it would feel like if they were just ordinary people living their life with maybe the odd miracle. It was a game he’d loved and though he’d never mentioned it to Aziraphale—of course he hadn’t—the angel had done the same. 

Crowley had got used to the sound of Aziraphale’s heartbeat whispering in the quiet of the room. Not that a human would’ve been able to hear it, of course, but it was no problem for demon-sharp ears. Aziraphale would sit in his chair and read, cup and saucer to hand, and Crowley would loll on the sofa with a glass of wine, sometimes thinking, sometimes just listening to that quiet acknowledgement of a shared pretence. It was the nearest he’d come to finding peace in a long, long time.

But those beautiful long afternoons were at an end, perhaps for good. The realisation hit hard, and he swerved. There was a screech of brakes; normally the car simply would not have crashed but Crowley was tangled up in the threads of his grief, and the laws of physics prevailed. The Bentley veered off the road and crashed into a tree.

He leaned his forehead on the wheel. “I’m sorry,” he murmured to the car. “I’ll make it right.”  Stumbling out of the door, he looked at the damage. The tree hadn’t smashed anything too vital, but it had made a mess of the beautiful curves. He pushed the Bentley back onto the tarmac easily enough, but when it came to having the strength to miracle it right, he had nothing.

He tried again, passing his hand over the crumpled, scratched metal, but there was nothing inside him but hollowness; a light coating of frost briefly flowered into fractals, then melted into a scattering of drops on the warm car.  Everything felt so very far away. Impossible, even.

The car let its engine stutter to a stop and reached out for comfort—and not just to him. Far away, very faintly, there was a faint scent of cologne and old books, and under his hand the metal straightened itself into pristine shape. As the wrinkled paint smoothed and joined together, lemon yellow, Crowley flung himself along the link; there was the faintest whisper of love and determination, and fear—

—and then the connection shattered abruptly.  The Metatron’s voice slithered into his head.  I don’t think that’s at all appropriate, do you… demon ? The term was a pointed reminder of everything that was at risk. 

Crowley didn’t answer. The link was gone, as if it had never existed. His stomach swirled uneasily; he had no way of knowing if Aziraphale was just cut off from him, or—worse.

The paint had not finished turning black when the link was severed; it had left a yellow lightning-streak on the car bonnet. Crowley smoothed his fingers over the polished metal but made no effort to finish the colour change. He had nothing to hold onto except that. 

Crowley was not one for hoarding stuff, and anything really precious to him was hidden away. He’d taken to using the bookshop as a safe space,  but it would be some time before he could face the sight of the empty chair there. For now, this was all he had. He pressed his hand down on the yellow paint and his mouth tightened.

A slight rain began to fall. Crowley got back in the car. The windscreen blurred with drops sliding down, but it didn’t matter. All he could see was Aziraphale’s face, disappearing between the lift doors, and the Metatron’s gratified expression.  A shiver slithered down his spine. It’ll happen all over again, and this time I’m not there to step in. 

= = = =

rest of the chapter can be found on AO3, as ever!

[reflectionsofacreator]

potential au game: cylva got yote out of the first all the way to the source and became the warrior of light (timeline discrepancies DNI)

[Send me a potential AU and I’ll tell you five fun facts that would happen in a story]

okay okay okay

But Ardbert, dear Ardbert, would not forsake his heart. In the end, he chose mercy. His fight lead him to the twin shadows that guided Cylva, and her world disappears in a pillar of Light that she was afraid would never happen. She wakes in Carteneau, wakes to see Bahamut ripping his way out of the moon, to the bright light of Phoenix battling him, and knows that her task succeeded, that she brought about a Calamity. (She is wrong. She won't know for some time). At least she can take some small comfort in knowing she did her job, that her dearest friends didn't die for nothing.

Five years pass in feverish haze, her body struggling under the enormous weight of the Shadowkeeper that was brought forth to facilitate a final battle. She never was supposed to survive, her role was to be defeated and die. Yet lives she does, and the kind doctors of Ul'dah's medic halls ask her name and tell her she can live. Cylva does not deserve to do so, but... maybe if she does, she can find the Ascians, and make them pay. She didn't have a choice, she had to kill her companions on their orders, but she isn't beholden to them anymore. Her legs wobble like a newborn colt's as she forces herself to her feet and pick up the sword she destroyed a world with.

Cylva meets Lahabrea in the bowels of an old Gridanian prison and does not hesitate to sink her blade through his chest. "Does it make you feel better, Shadowkeeper, to know that you've destroyed this vessel of mine?" He asks, his lips rosy with bubbling blood. "You are more alike to us than you wish to admit. You cannot stop the darkening tide. You will be there, deathless and eternal, to witness as our Lord Zodiark reclaims all. It is your reward." The body that thuds to the ground and squelches against the tacky viscera of the diremite does not absolve her.

She never used to worship the God of Light like so many others in Norvrandt, yet it is hard to witness as crystal after crystal comes to her. She cannot let herself think that it means anything. It is an involuntary reaction from Mother, the same as how her Call is neverceasing and unending, and only needs to be listened to. Mother does not know her, Cylva is simply one of many that heard the Call. (And if she sometimes clutches the stones to her chest and cries in great heaving sobs over the memory of the friend that should've held the stone, then that is her secret to keep.) (How dare she take comfort in God's answering machine.)

Minfilia and the others name her Warrior of Light, and it is a wound, throbbing and raw and she's stuck in it. It's not her title, she didn't deserve this. She's thanked for saving Thancred (as if she would ever let him stay in those bastard's clutches) and for defeating Ultima weapon, and Cylva knows she's tricked them somehow. She can't live up to Ardbert's example, she's spitting on his memory by pretending otherwise.

She isn't a hero, not through the Bloody Banquet, not through the Dragonsong War, certainly not at The Vault. She's just doing her miserable best, only feeling marginally better as she takes down a pair of Ascians that were too much like Lohgrif and Mitron, makes sure two more of those things won't be bothering this world again. It lasts for scant moments, until Estinien - a man just as consumed by grief and rage as she - is taken. She isn't a hero.

She isn't, she isn't she isn't she isn't, right up until her feet skid on gravel and she sees a familiar axe swing, sees his bright blue eyes land on her with disdain and souldeep pain that she knows too well, sees him slaughter an innocent Vath and declare himself a Warrior of Darkness.

She isn't, but for him? To spare him the same pain she knew? She will be.

[samuelroukin]

still alive then? 😂

i think i'm dead and just posting through sheer will power (much like a....) because dude that was so fucking good i'm 🥵 the way you set the tone and describe feelings and sensations is amazing, please write at least 1000 more fics 🙏

[sapphicshelf]

lesbian sick day

[hismentor]

𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲𝗻'𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗲𝗱 𝗶 𝗺𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗳𝗮𝗿 ?

[empantis]

        --     i  am  a  FLEA  with  purpose .

[te-intheworld]

A horrible phone video of Venus and Jupiter just as Venus disappears behind my horizon. Stargazing and identifying the constellations has been a new interest of mine as of late. It helps me get out at night to walk the dogs and it's easy with the app I have and the low light pollution skies I live under.

[kitsunekage88]

I think I'm finally caught up on my writing after yesterday.

[withsorrowandregret-archive]

❝  so  ,    sue me  .    i didn’t want you to die  .   ❞    /    @tranquil-inquiry​ ♡ 'ed

[jac-is-procrastinating-again]

Chapter 6:

Aziraphale goes to the Great Library to look at the Book of Life to see what Crowley was supposed to have done to merit Falling. It makes him very uneasy indeed...

Heaven, Now

“Ah, Saraqael.” Aziraphlale hadn’t realised she was there so he jumped like a rabbit when she came out from behind one of the bookstacks. Hopefully she hadn’t noticed. “I just want to get this Crowley business out of the way before we really get stuck into the war preparations.”

“The Crowley business?” Saraqael stopped her wheelchair.

“Yes. The Metatron was saying that it might be sensible to reinstate him as an angel so we can get him in on the business at hand. Bit irregular working with a demon on the end of the world, but he’s the only one who knows humans as well as I do, of course, so he’d be invaluable…”

“To the war? Crowley?” Saraqael raised an eyebrow. “Six thousand years must have changed him. Still, he’s very capable, there’s no denying that.”

What did that mean? But Aziraphale was too conscious that the clock was ticking down, fast. He could ask questions later. “So how do we go about it?”

“Well, it’s not something that’s really been done before, reinstating an angel. There were a few compromises we made after the Great War, I think… Follow me.” Saraqael set off between the rows of shelves, through the datafiles glimmering in stacks, back to the big old hardbacks and beyond, to the scrolls and the stone tablets. She paused at one of the very early ones. “There.” She pointed her reader at the shelf and the datafile shimmered down into it. She flicked forward and back; faces flickered and jumped in the air. Lucifer, Gabriel and Beelzebub spitting imprecations at each other, Metatron looking troubled, Uriel, Michael and Crowley arguing between themselves. Why was Crowley with the Archangels? Had he been an Archangel? Aziraphale supposed he must have been though he couldn’t immediately remember the details.

“Here.” Saraqael flicked up a document. It scrolled on and on and on. “It’s not an easy thing to do but….” She scrolled to the end. “It’s not impossible. Looks like we need to start by assembling all known records of the entity involved and then going through them. If we can put together enough evidence that whatever wrongdoing has been redeemed or repented, we can assemble a panel to hear the evidence, and ultimately take it to the Metatron for approval.”

Aziraphale didn’t like the sound of that. It sounded… lengthy. “And then?”

“If it all gets approved we make the amendments in the Book of Life, and once that’s set, it all goes very easily.”

“Okay, the Book of Life. And that’s where the records are too?”

“Indeed. You prefer the actual book format to datafile, I believe?” Saraqael asked, setting off again. “I can subsection according to Crowley’s immediate contacts and impacts if you like.”

“Please.” He followed her to a wide table with an array of chairs around it.

She gestured and a large pile of books came down to rest on it. “I’m afraid you can’t take them away, but they’ll be here whenever you need them. They’ll autoplay as needed too.” A set of notebooks stacked themselves neatly in a corner along with a blue fountain pen. “Please be careful not to blot the books; it can cause a lot of trouble if it’s not authorised. Any problems, come straight to me, or if there’s anything you need. I’ll be at my desk by the door.” She started to leave.

“Saraqael?” Aziraphale hesitated.

“Yes?”

“You knew him, didn’t you? Crowley?”

She paused. “Not by that name, of course. But we worked together on the Horsehead Nebula before the Fall. Some of his best work, I truly believe. The song of the stars is quite something, and that was all him. He always did have a way with music.”

Aziraphale looked at the pile of books and found himself afraid to open them. “Were you surprised? When he Fell, I mean?”

Her face grew sad. “Yes. And no. I’d hoped it wouldn’t happen, of course, but…it was inevitable. Being who he was, it couldn’t have happened any other way.” She opened her mouth as if to say something, but visibly changed her mind, putting on a neutral expression. “I suppose that’s not something you remember? So many of us were traumatised after the Fall, we had to wipe a good few memories.” She looked away. “It was a terrible time.”

“But you remember it?”

“We’re scribes, Aziraphale. We are the ones – sometimes the only ones – who do.”

“I’m sorry.” He looked down at the notebooks in front of him. “That sounds hard. And… lonely.”

She nodded. “And yet sometimes it is all we can do, for the Greater Good. To remember what came before and do our best to make sure we learn from our mistakes.” She turned her chair. “But time is short. Feel free to call if you need anything.”

“I will,” he called after her. “Thank you.”

He sat down at the table and opened a notebook, running his finger down the join so that it lay flat. Then he opened the first book and caught his breath; a line drawing of Crowley as he had been right back at the beginning, his face open and shining with joy. He’d looked like this the first time Aziraphale had ever met him, when they fired up the Nebula together. “This is how you should look.” Not that saddened, pain-worn expression that haunted his face when his guard was down. “How did you get there from here?”

= = =

Link to the rest of the chapter:

[feuerfliegen]

@dvarapala just because

"So that is what's going on, hu? You are simply crazy.“, Laney already regretted that she had helped this girl get off of the streets once the attack started. Things like this usually came back around to bite you in the arse. "I mean, you cannot seriously think going out there is a good idea. The streets could still be crawling with infected and we have nothing to defend ourselves with.“

[seriouslyaliens]

       “There’s nothing for you to worry about, Rose.” Joan tries for an encouraging smile. “I’ll only be gone a few months, I’m sure. I can’t pass up this opportunity. To study the stars from among them—do you know how impossible that seemed to me last week?” 

@tempusxrosa​​​ — call.

[starlightsparrowfox]

"HEY my lads and lasses, newest members of the crew, drink your share of whiskey or I'll drink your share for you." ~

reblog w the song lyrics in your head NOW. either stuck in yr head or what yr listening to

[empantis]

hello  everyone  !  this  is  hari  with  an  rp  blog  for  MANTIS  of  marvel's  𝐆𝐔𝐀𝐑𝐃𝐈𝐀𝐍𝐒  𝐎𝐅  𝐓𝐇𝐄  𝐆𝐀𝐋𝐀𝐗𝐘.  includes  verses  of  various  media  including  celestial  quest  +  sony's  guardians  !  SLIGHT  CANON  DIVERGANCE  FROM  INFORMATION  GIVEN  FROM  THE  HOLIDAY  SPECIAL.  please  be  sure  to  ↻  +  follow  if  you'd  like  to  interact  ! / doc.

sideblogs  ;  @stcrlcdy​  &  @masophin​