@ice_chip: Here we go again: Pyotr and Svech

Crochet A Resilience In Bloom Afghan For The Perfect Heirloom Gift: 👉 https://buff.ly/3aMvWmN 🌺

some hockey players’ first names make me feel like i’m the bitchy girlfriend of the main character’s love interest in a romantic comedy who refuses to use the love interest’s nickname as a metaphor for how i don’t really know him or accept him for who he really is and instead am trying to fit him into the mold of who i think he should be. it’s like, nolan patrick, right? like if the main character of the movie was a tk type and they grew up childhood best friends or whatever, and he comes home for christmas after a big breakup and sees pat for the first time in ten years and he’s like “whoa, patty! you grew up!” and then i walk in, in an outfit that’s way too formal and makes me look silly next to pat in his ripped jorts, and i’m like, “nolan. we’re going to be LATE to my father’s YACHT LAUNCH.” and i drag him away by the elbow and tk mouths “nolan?!” at him behind my back and he just shrugs. that’s how it feels using that man’s first name. this is how i feel about using “tristan” for jarry also. does this make sense i feel delirious

It occurs to me I've never officially analyzed this photo and since no one asked I feel like doing it now 🤣

(I'm of course no psychologist and don't presume to know what the actors were trying to portray with their body language, I'm just an overinvested nerd who is intrigued by their gestures and what it adds to the context of the scene)

The most obvious difference is of course Aziraphale's hands behind his back whereas all the Archangels' hands are folded in front of them. Aziraphale at this point has had his arrangement with Crowley for a long time, so he has a lot to hide. I also noticed that Aziraphale has the fingers of his right hand wrapped around his left thumb. Perhaps holding himself in self-comfort, since he is currently outnumbered by angels who clearly intimidate him?

Next is Gabriel and Sandalphon. The fact that they both are holding their hands in exactly the same way can't be a coincidence. Left hand over right. Sandalphon clearly idolizes Gabriel, this was most obvious in the bookshop scene. The way Sandalphon sneers at Aziraphale after having made Gabriel laugh. It just screamed "I'm his favorite employee." Sandalphon not only follows Gabriel around, he mirrors his gestures too.

Speaking of Gabriel's gestures. His hands are relaxed and he seems to be lightly cradling his right wrist (also intentionally flashing his fancy watch in Aziraphale's direction. "Your time is running out" much?) Gabriel is completely comfortable in this situation, in which he is wholly in charge, his Archangels have his back, and he's able to assert his dominance over Aziraphale. Typical a-hole boss man.

Uriel is only slightly different than Sandalphon and Gabriel, which I think is interesting. Hands folded almost identical, but with the right over left instead. Could Uriel simply have a different dominant hand than Gabriel? Probably. Am I using it as an opportunity to consider how Uriel respects Gabriel and Sandalphon but insists on doing things their own way? Yes, yes I am.

Now to my favorite aspect of this photo. Michael. The warrior angel. Has her fingers steepled to a sharp point, aimed downwards.

*Voice of John Mulaney* "Now we don't have time to unpack all of that."

Michael is the only angel who does not have her hands folded. I have a personal headcanon regarding the power dynamic among the Archangels. Yes, Gabriel is the face of the operation, and he thinks he's the one pulling all the strings. But Michael is the real boss. She did defeat Satan in the first holy war, after all. I think the fact that Michael's fingers steeple to a sharp point, a weapon of sorts, is not an accident. She already knows that Aziraphale is a "traitor" and she's regarding him as such, with her guard up. Gabriel is at least trying to have faith in Aziraphale ("there has to be a reasonable explanation for this" in response to the Earth observation photos). Gabriel is clinging to the hope that one of his angels wouldn't turn against the Great Plan, Michael already knows, probably before Aziraphale himself even does, that he will turn. To be quite blunt, Gabriel is stupid and Michael is not. And her fingers are pointed downward, in the direction of Hell, where she personally banished the last traitorous angel. Gabriel may be the one standing at the head of the group, doing the talking, but Michael is the one doing the threatening.

In conclusion, your honor, there is so much to enjoy about this photo and the skill of every single actor to put so much personality into the act of just standing there, but the longer you stare at it the more you appreciate it.

And Mary said, “How can this be, because I am a virgin?”

And the angel Gabriel gave an offhand shrug and said “Not my department. Trust in the Great Plan, Mary.” And he clapped a hand to her shoulder before he disappeared.

Mary: No man has ever touched me!

Gabriel: Look sister, I’m not here to discuss your love life problems, okay? Did you hear the part about the son of God???? Jesus Christ, humans are so dense.

And Mary said: “but I have never lain with a man.”

And the angel Gabriel said “well what does that have to do with anything?” And the angel Aziraphale, who happened to be there as well, leaned over and started whispering frantically in Gabriel’s ear.

And the angel Gabriel looked absolutely disgusted and said “wait, they seriously do that? And we can’t stop them? It’s definitely part of the Plan?”

And the angel Aziraphale nodded. And the angel Gabriel said “well Mary, I’m afraid that that… stuff, really isn’t my department. But I’m sure God’s got it all sorted out somehow. Lucky you! Thank Her we don’t have to do any of that sort of thing, eh Aziraphale?”

And the angel Aziraphale turned rather red, and suddenly became very interested in the floor.

@sevdrag

Blame this post. I DID say not to put ideas in my brain, I got no brain-to-hand filters.

Heaven and hell have a shared break space, with a bar and all. It’s how Archangels and Dukes and up “collaborating”

this is so awkward because Pestilence seems to have come back out of retirement this year so now there is FIVE Horsemen and only FOUR Horses

The fifth horse has been LOOSE IN A HOSPITAL for the last 4 years.

Soon to fixed.

The entire history of the world, religion, politics, and pop culture came together to make this joke possible.

Okay new Good Omens reverse fic idea

(You know, the fics where Crowley is an angel and Aziraphale is a demon)

So, the popular idea is that angel!Crowley asks for hellfire for protection and Aziraphale argues but eventually gives it to him, probably around WWII.

BUT WHAT IF

Angel!Crowley is terrified of demon!Aziraphale getting caught by Hell and gives Aziraphale Holy Water to protect himself? And Aziraphale sees it as “Crowley would rather let me die than let Heaven know we’re friends”

THE POTENTIAL ANGST

Neil-verse goes brrrr

RIP Usher 🕯

He died so hard even his creator forgor about him

Neil Gaiman Definitely Not Killing a Demon in Holy Water, Feb 2018

And the Usher, yes. Such a tragedy. And Eric, although I think his many deaths may be impermanent.

the angel with three guns

they lend weight to... "moral argument" : )

Bonuses:

Eden Crowley my sweet summer child

Writing fanfic as a non-US citizen like

In case anyone actually wants to know the answer: it’s the plot of Cars. The difference is literally the plot of Cars.

Highways are usually two-to-four (at the widest) lane roads that meander the US landscape. Think Route 66, dinosaur statues, mom-and-pop diners, southern gothic. There are state-level and national-level highways. Some run for a 100 miles, some, like US HWY-17, run most of the East Coast:

That red line is US HWY 17. If you follow it, you will go through tiny towns. You may hit stoplights. I kid you not, you will see spinning cows on poles. Businesses exist along highways that you are encouraged to pull over and visit. They were designed to let you see America.

Yeah.

Now, interstates were made in the 50s and were made to get people from Point A to Point B. These suckers range from four lanes to eight lanes around big cities. They cut through everything. If you want to get to a business, you have to take an exit ramp and detour. They are great for getting places fast. You can still have weird experiences on them, but usually at night, when your eyes start playing tricks on you. Or there are deer.

I-95 is a massive corridor that runs from the Florida Keys to the Canadian Border. You can see the difference just looking at the maps.

As far as writing goes:

If you want quirky character development inside the car, you’re looking for an interstate. The majority of Americans take interstates to go on road trips.

If you want mysterious and/or supernatural hijinks, you’re looking for a highway. They are weird, weird places, and they’re surprisingly easy to wind up on if you leave the interstate.

(Even in America, no one’s really sure what a freeway is. Just ignore it.)

Freeways exist in big cities where cars are more prominent than public transport, such as LA or Atlanta. You’ve year of liminal spaces? Freeways during rush hour are a physical manifestation of hell.

Awesome! Now what the hell is a turnpike?

If you find out, let me know. Maybe ask someone from New Jersey.

A turnpike is a highway with a toll. Turnpikes are special highways where you drive really fast and it’s usually linking big cities with each other and you keep going until you hit a toll booth.

They’re called “turnpikes” because in the olden days, there were pikes or barriers up and you had to pay the toll for them to be raised or turned to let you in.

Also, just for the record, Hawaii does have interstates.

For everyone who didn’t want to know, expressways are a form of highway that connect both suburban areas and major interstates to a city They often have both an alphanumerical name and a colloquial name In Philly we have the Schuylkill Expressway (I-76)

Would like to add that highways and mainly interstates were made specifically so THE MILITARY could get from Point A to Point B. This combined with a post-WWII boost in the economy and car industry gave Americans the ability to tour the country on their own for the first time ever. A whole chunk of American culture was created by just expanding the road system.

Think about road systems and other systems of travel when worldbuilding!

All this being said, most East Coast US people will refer to all of these things interchangeably as “highways”/”the highway.”

Another note for non-USians trying to write a road trip story – if your characters would definitely be taking the interstate, but you want them on a highway in order for the supernatural shenanigans to start (or whatever), the solution is very simple: they hit a traffic jam. Could be due to construction, could be due to an accident, but traffic slows to a crawl and they say “there’s gotta be a way around this” and take the next exit. Then it turns out their cell phone has no coverage in that spot so they can’t just pull up a map, and VOILA. Into the Twilight Zone! One of the things about an interstate is that USUALLY, there’s an exit and an entrance right by each other, so you can exit, find a gas station or a place to grab lunch near the exit, then get right back on, but this is not always the case. Sometimes there’s an exit, but nowhere nearby to get back on.

I just want to add that there’s a slightly different vibe if you’re in the midwest. Because cities on the coasts are closer together, the interstate is just a super efficient point A to point B, city to city, no interruptions.

In the midwest, and I expect the southwest, to the interstate can get some real wonky vibes because YOU ARE ALONE. You are on one black strip of neverending road across hours and hours and hours of alone. You can drive very fast for a very long time and not see signs of another human being. Sometimes the alone-ness is added to by the sheer flatness of the land around you. You can see for forever and there’s nobody here. You sometimes see dead gas stations or billboards with only scraps of paper left on them.

You are in tornado ally and there is NOWHERE to hide if a blizzard or thunderstorm or twister comes for you. If it’s winter the snow is BLINDING.

It’s beautiful. But it’s horror is less small-town-gothic and more existential threat.

For clarity: the term freeway literally means it’s an interstate with no tolls. It’s free for every driver to use.

The West Coast of the US doesn’t have tolls on our interstates, but some of our big important bridges have tolls.

Seconding @leebrontide’s bit about interstates in the mid and southwest. I have Seen Things doing cross-country moves through the southwest and midwest. One experience that we refer to as “Silent Kansas” we literally went across the entire width of Kansas without seeing a single other vehicle, open gas station, or sign of life, while shrouded in a blanket-thick fog that dissipated essentially immediately upon crossing the border into Colorado. Or the time we were driving south on the I-17 in Arizona after midnight, and there was something following us for a full hour that was a pair of glowing lights that looked like headlights but, I swear it’s fucking true, was not another car. they disappeared in my rearview on a stretch with no exits just outside the Phoenix city limits, and to this day I have no idea wtf it was.

weird shit happens on interstates away from the coasts.

Highway: a high-speed and long-distance road, but without limited access. You will have occasional stop lights or stop signs, and you’ll go through small towns. Most likely place to see a cryptid. (also a generic term for all of these roads)

Expressway: a high speed road with limited access. There are no stop signs or lights. There are entrance and exit ramps. These usually cut through the landscape to a greater degree than highways.

Freeway: an expressway without tolls

Turnpike: an expressway with tolls. So called because they had a long stick (a pike) on a pivot that blocks the road until it is turned to let you through after paying the toll.

Interstate: a (usually particularly long) expressway built as part of the interstate system. Has a designation I-## (eg, I-95). There are also local expressways that are part of the interstate system that get a third digit (I-495). These generally connect Something™ to the larger two-digit interstate (so I-495 connects to I-95). 3-digit interstates are most often freeways. A two-digit interstate may be a freeway or a turnpike and will probably switch back and forth over its length.

Also, everyone will use most of these terms wrong most of the time! You can call any of them a highway and no one will bat an eye. You could call a turnpike a freeway and people will literally not notice. If you call anything an expressway you’ll sound like a nerd or a politician. We usually only say interstate to differentiate it from some other similar road. But if you call something a turnpike that doesn’t have turnpike in its name, even if it is a toll road, people will look at you funny.

Additionally, sometimes “turnpikes” are called “tollways.” Like the Tristate around Chicago.

Really love that these explanations, while they technically explain everything, have even left me, a born American, more lost than before. Rip in pieces, non-American writers, we did our best.

The issue is people are describing regional usages.

The person upthread who defines the Schuykill (SKOO-kill) Express as also being I-76 is correct. What they’re leaving out is I-76 is the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and it ends at the Ohio and Jersey borders. The Schuykill bit is one tiny stretch in Philadelphia, and there’s actually a bunch of regional names for small bits of the Philly road system. (There are… so many… Philly is up there with Boston for being a reason why people wanted online maps with the ability to give directions, and there are Pennsylvania businesses that TO THIS DAY have warnings on their websites to call for directions because careless use of online directions can kill) (most PA businesses that say to call for directions are on crack these days, but if you don’t know the area well enough to find the place on your own… call first, just to be safe)

Figure every single US city has 3-7 local names for roads that don’t match up with official ones, and every single local radio station that does traffic reports will have their own unique style guide for how to describe traffic and rerouting suggestions. That’s… a lot of variation, you know?

So it’s not enough to just look over a post like this, and try to steal terminology if you’re writing fiction. You’d actually need to work out where a character is from (so you know roughly what rules they grew up with), where they live now (so you know if they modify how they speak at all to communicate with people around them), and where all they’re traveling. It gets nightmarish pretty quick even for US natives to write. Oh and all this stuff changes over time! What was accurate in 1930 was not accurate in 1950 and what’s accurate in 1970 was not accurate in 1990 and… none of those are accurate now.

If you’re writing someone on the East Coast, sure. I lived in PA for a while, it can genuinely get that nightmarish and confusing.

But the further west you get, the less likely you are to have that sort of complexity.

See, the East Coast had been densely settled by white people for two centuries before the state and federal governments tried to standardize things, and the standardization was only intermittently successful. So you get all kinds of different places where the road system is wonky. But the further west you go, the fewer white people there were and the shorter time they’d been there. In 1850, Oregon had a (US citizen) population of only 12k people. In 1900, it boasted a population of 410k. By 1930, it had more than doubled to 950k, and by 1950 it was up to 1.5 million. North Dakota had 300k in 1900 and 680k in 1930. And they just hadn’t been there that long! People were still homesteading in the western edge of North Dakota into the 1910s.

Point is, when the state and federal government started building roads and trying to standardize and improve things for cars, there … wasn’t all that much road infrastructure to begin with, and most of it was fairly new. And most of the cities and towns were fairly new and small, too. So you could just figure out the most logical way to design a road network and start building, without having to care much about making it work with what was already there. Instead of trying to graft a highway (and later a freeway) system onto an already-existing network of roads, they could just create one from scratch.

So if you’re talking about the midwest, the southwest, the west, or the west coast, things are fairly simple.

1. If it’s a two lane road between towns that doesn’t continue on past town, it’s a road.

2. If it’s a two (or maybe four) lane road that runs through many towns, with no hard dividing line in the middle, and you it regularly intersects other roads and driveways and stuff, and is good for driving long distances, and you’re not likely to find a farmer moving agricultural equipment along it, it’s a highway.

3. If it’s four or more lanes, with a hard divider in the middle, and limited access*, it’s a freeway. *doesn’t intersect with other roads, it goes over or under them, so you have to take special ramps to get on or off.

I can actually think of an alternative explanation: small print press. He’d put out orders for various rare books with the traveling merchants who’d come through town, and every so often they’d turn up with one and he’d set about printing a hundred copies or so, then sell the fresh new copies to merchants heading towards various university towns like Avignon, Grenoble, Toulouse, etc. He’d likely keep a couple copies of each book for himself, generating a library, and might wind up with all sorts of books he couldn’t profitably make copies of to sell to the universities, like fairy tales.

If that’s his business model, then Belle might be the closest thing he’d have to an apprentice, since we can see he’s getting on in age and might have nobody else to even consider passing the business along to when he slips the mortal coil. As one final thought, her dad is an inventor, and might be the bookseller’s only actual local customer, which might also explain the relationship. Her dad would occasionally want certain types of books on natural philosophy, and the bookseller would be the one with contacts who could procure them. Just look how dangerous it was for him to go traveling all alone! Far better to leave that sort of business to professional traveling merchants.

If you combine these ideas, then you wind up with a bookseller who was training Belle as an apprentice for both small press publishing and money laundering, only to watch his very promising student be swept away by some rich guy the whole town was trying to kill twenty minutes ago. He admires her hustle, but it leaves a gaping hole in his succession plan.

Fortunately there are two newcomers in town, one with an eye for mechanics and meticulous attention to detail and one with a love of risks and charm to spare, and that's how the neurotic clock and slutty candlestick take over the legitimate and criminal wings of his enterprise respectively.

The Ring: If I had a quarter for every time a hobbit picked me up, I’d have two quarters.  The Ring: Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.

Of all the bearers of Sauron’s ring, 4 of them were hobbits.

I was wrong. It’s 5. Not 4

The lineage of ring bearers is as follows.

I love how Deagol counts as a ring bearer even though he had it in his possession for all of like five seconds

He held it for the rest of of his life!

[Image description: Tweet by @banalplay saying “but something happened then that the ring did not intend. it was picked up by the most unlikely creature imaginable: a hobbit, the same fuckin thing that just had it for like 500 years.” End Image Description.] Link to original here. Otherwise reblogging for the final rb there, which made me cackle.

From the ring’s perspective:

1. Home, the finger of my creator and other self.

2. Well, I don’t like it but I can work with this. Cause some trouble, get some revenge, find my way home, this is fine.

3. What the fuck is you?

4. Right personality, wrong species, I don’t know what you are but I hate you and I don’t know why you’re so resistant to my powers.

5. NO NO NO there are goblins everywhere how did I find another one of THESE horrible things. This one’s even more resistant than the last one and also disgustingly nice. I suffer.

6. Listen, I’ll cooperate, just get me the fuck out of this hellhole full of small cheerful people my power doesn’t work on properly. No, not like that. I hate you. Please stop. 

7. FUCK

8. (Frodo again) I still hate you with every molecule of my mortal form but at least you’re not number seven. Think I’m starting to get through finally. 

9. (Smeagol again) YES it’s you I actually missed you now get me back to the Master and NO FUCK NO I HATE YOOOOUUUUU…. *fzt* 

I can viscerally feel that ‘FUCK!!!!!’ when Sam has it. This is ring cruelty.

Bible Writing Prompt: Dialogue

“Michael, you mustn’t go to the Earth!”

“My people are crying out!”

“You’ve really become attached to the human soldiers and police officers.”

“Metatron, please.” They seemed ready to break by this point.

“No,” Michael cried out in pain and turned to the side, reaching out and gripping the railing with both hands tightly, “Michael, it pains me to do this just as much as you are hurting in not being there with your fellow soldiers but Lucifer wants you - though it is only for your power, he may very well use his silver tongue to make it seem as though he wants you as it was before again.” - here Michael looked up, despair and desperation to help their people swimming in their eyes - “I wish these words didn’t have to leave my lips but you must stay here, Michael, here Lucifer and his words and his lies cannot reach you.”

“They can if he reaches out to me in my dreams,” Michael mumbles, looking down. Tears threatened to spill as they thought of their lost brother and former friend.

“What?” Shocked, the Metatron could only stand there as Michael quietly and shakely explained to them how though Michael tried to destroy the former bond between Michael and Lucifer so as to stop the pain, Lucifer continued to cling to their frayed bond; Michael had no idea why for their bond was too damaged for Lucifer to glean any of Michael’s power from it or tempt them through it except through their dreams. Upon hearing this, the Metatron thought about it and said, “Maybe he does this in the hopes that with the bond still there, he can tempt you more easily to join him?”

Michael closed their eyes and released their hands from the railing, straightening up as they did so. They opened their eyes and looked sightlessly out at the open fields in front of them as they confess, “He sends me memories of our time together, sends images and dreams of a life together like Before.”

“This is most troubling… Well, until we can figure out how to cut off the Bond without harming or damaging you (or Lucifer - at least until The Final Battle - ), I would recommend that you and the other Archangels, and any other angel or human comfortable with sleeping, gather together and sleep in a dog pile. Hopefully, the warmth and familiar weight of the others will temper the dreams and hold them at bay; if not, at least you will have our siblings already by your side willing to comfort you.”

“Ok,” Michael replied, relieved that, even if this wasn’t a solution, at least they would have their siblings physically there to comfort them.

Supernatural Writing Prompt: Dialogue

“In the pagans’ eyes, deserting is punishable by death.” Gabriel whipped around in surprise and gasped, “Michael.”

Michael looked at Gabriel sadly but calmly, “We are not the Pagans, I do not blame you for leaving, what with this War happening.”

“If you want to leave, then why don’t you? We can go together, leave this place that has forgotten how to be a home.”

“I can’t. My place is here.” Gabriel walked up to Michael and grabbed them by their second set of arms, the other set preoccupied with holding a bundle close to their chest, and begged them, “Michael, please, you don’t have to do this. Nobody makes us do anything. This War is destroying you.”

Michael shook their head and shoved the bundle into Gabriel’s arms who instinctly and in shock wrapped his arms around the bundle, “I know I can’t persuade you to stay, it breaks me to separate from you, but please, you must take them with you,” Gabriel looked down at the bundle in his arms and nearly flinches in surprise upon seeing the sleeping face of Michael’s child staring at him. “De`iel?! I can’t! I can’t do that to you!” Michael ergently responded, “You must! I cannot protect them here, I can no longer raise them here - It is too dangerous!” - Michael’s voice broke here, the words they were saying hurt them so much. - “Gabriel, you know of somewhere safe where Lucifer and his fallen cannot touch them! Take them there, lock their grace away, cut off my connection to them, do what ever you must to make sure that neither our fallen siblings nor our Heavenly siblings can find them!”

“I can’t! I can’t - I won’t - do that to you, Michael, you love them, you must raise them - you both will be deeply hurt if I do such a thing!”

Michael was crying by now, and Gabriel was close to crying himself, “You must, you must. I do not want to part from my child but you must, Gabriel. This is a war, Gabriel, they won’t hesitate, they won’t hesitate to kill De`iel or hurt them. I can’t - I can’t protect them anymore. Not with the way things are going.” Michael gathered themself together as Gabriel finally - reluctantly - agreed to take the child with him and hide them away; Michael hugged their brother and softly kissed their child on the forehead - possibly for the last time,

“Take them far away from here, I don’t care where, somewhere where no one from this place can touch them, on Earth, on one of the other planets in the other galaxies, anywhere but here. Hide yourself and them, and -” here, Michael hesitated, not wanting to lose two of their closet brothers but having no choice, so with great reluctantance, they took a deep breath - “Don’t come back. Don’t come back.”

Gabriel ran, while Michael watched, struggling to hold themself together as they felt the bonds - which they had with every single one of their siblings - broke on Gabriel’s and De`iel’s side. Struggled to hold it together as the once bright beacons dimmed to a barely there flicker, with De`iel’s completely faded. Struggled and finally broke down as Raphael came behind them and hugged them tightly to her with her wings wrapping around them to hide from view, as her own tears feel and her cries of pain and loss echoed with all of their other siblings through the Force - as those siblings realized that Gabriel’s once always there presence in the Spirit was gone.