List Of Books To Read Before You Die

That one video of the two girlfriends proposing each other had VERY strong Aziraphale x Crowley vibes… so… I just had to do it. Also shooketh Gabriel and Belzebub in the background, my pleasure

if you love me, you don't love me in a way i understand

wishbone, richard siken

My best friend and I had a call recently—she’s back with her family for a bit helping out with some hometown stuff. As part of the stuff, she’s been going through a (deceased) relative’s scrapbook, compiled in the American Midwest circa 1870-1900 and featuring mostly cut-out figures from the ads of the day.

She talked about how painstaking this relative’s work was. (Apparently the relative was careful to cut out every finger, every cowlick; this was by no means carelessly or hastily assembled.) But she also she talked about how—the baby on the baking soda ad is ugly, it is so ugly, why anyone would clip this heinously ugly illustrated baby and paste it into a scrapbook? Why would you save the (terribly told, boring) ghost story that came with your box of soap?

(Why include these things in the first place? we asked each other. ”There’s a kind of anti-capitalism to it,” she mused.)

And we discussed that for a bit—how most of the images, stories, artists, and ads were local, not national; they’re pulled from [Midwestern state] companies’ advertisements in [Midwestern state] papers, magazines, and products. As a consequence, you’re not looking at Leyendecker or Norman Rockwell illustrations, but Johann Spatz-Smith from down the road, who took a drawing class at college.

(College is the state college, and he came home on weekends and in the summer to help with the farm or earn some money at the plant.)

But it also inspired a really interesting conversation about how—we have access to so much more art, better and more professional art, than any time in history. As my bff said, all you have to do to find a great, technically proficient and lovely representational image of a baby, is to google the right keywords. But for a girl living in rural [Midwestern state] of the late 1800s, it was the baking soda ad, or literal actual babies. There was no in-between, no heading out to the nearby art museum to study oil paintings of mother and child, no studying photographs and film—such new technologies hadn’t diffused to local newspapers and circulars yet, and were far beyond the average person’s means. But cheap, semi-amateur artists? Those were definitely around, scattered between towns and nearby smallish cities.

It was a good conversation, and made me think about a couple things—the weird entitlement that “professional” and expensive art instills in viewers, how it artificially depresses the appetite for messy unprofessional art, including your own; the way that this makes your tastes narrower, less interesting, less open.

By that I mean—maybe the baby isn’t ugly! Maybe you’ve just seen too many photorealistic babies. Maybe you haven’t really stopped to contemplate that your drawing of a baby (however crude, ugly, or limited) is the best drawing of a baby you can make, and the act of drawing that lumpen, ugly baby is more sacred and profoundly human than even looking at a Mary Cassatt painting.

And even if that isn’t the case….there was this girl in [American Midwestern state] for whom it was very, very important that she capture every finger, curl, and bit of shading for that ugly soap ad baby. And some one hundred years later, her great-something-or-other took pains to preserve her work—because how terribly human it is, to seek out all the art we can find that resonates with us, preserve it, adore it.

It might be the most human impulse we have.

"Stop, Aziraphale, stop," Crowley whispered above him. The voice that was always so sharp, so sure, trembled as Aziraphale dropped to his knees, hands on the demon's sinewy thighs.

The angel pulled back, ceasing the gentle kisses he'd been peppering down the demon's front. Immediately he was hit by the waves of deep shame rolling off Crowley; his demon, his best friend, the being he cared more for than first editions, delicately iced tennis cakes, Veuve Clicquot at the Ritz.

"My dearest one," Aziraphale startled, "what is it? I'm so sorry, have I done something wrong?"

"We have to stop, if we don't-" Crowley sobbed, "... We can't do this- you can't be with me- you'll fall. You can't fall for me. Please, angel."

In an instant Aziraphale knew. Those were not Crowley’s words, they were his own. Not expressed directly, but implied through years of his righteous prejudice. Reminders that he was not an angel, he was not holy, he was not the same as Aziraphale.  

The angel also knew that if they were to be together he needed to tear at their shared wound. He would reach in and pull at his own weakness and cowardice until it was torn from its warm resting place above Aziraphale’s heart where it slept, leaking the thick toxic doubt that they were drowning in.

Crowley had been strong, hanging in by his polished black nails to the thought that maybe he could be loved. And now that his unattainable hope was within reach he was willing to choke the breath from the poor creature because the thought of his dream bearing its sharpened teeth and hurting his angel was too much.

Aziraphale rose and tugged the demon closer, encouraging him to open his soul to the angel, just for a moment. Only long enough to get to the ledge together.

“It is not a sin to love, my darling,” he stated, but his voice trembled. “I’ve been falling for you since the moment I opened my wings, and furthermore-...”

Aziraphale took a deep breath as he neared the edge where Crowley was already standing. He had been standing there since the beginning, waiting patiently for Aziraphale.

“... I am so sorry that I've made you feel as if you weren’t worth falling for.”

Crowley let out a desperate broken sob of relief and they stepped off together.

Good Omens Fic Recs

Hello, it’s Monday and I’m procrastinating, so here are some Good Omens fic recs. These are 10 of my favorites, in absolutely no order whatsoever. (Tumblr handles added only where I am sure of them and know offhand the person uses Tumblr.)

The Ark by rfsmiley (T) - Space! Environmentalism and all the complicated feelings an angel and demon might have about the earth and each other.

Instructions Not Included by Atalan (T) - Post-canon, Aziraphale and Crowley open a supernatural detective agency. Shenanigans ensue.

Rip It Up and Start Again by @kittydorkling (E) - Post-canon, South Downs cottage getting-together fic that is just so lovely.

Hot Days, Mad Blood by @noodlefrog-omens (T) - Historical Omens with swordfighting and unresolved tension.

Firebird III. Finale by htebazytook (T) - Book Omens! A pre-TV fic that focuses on the raising-Warlock era and is so smart about music, in a way that I only vaguely understand.

Getting It Right by Lhugy_For_Short (T) - A slightly different take on both the body swap and the pining-through-the-ages story. Features the best Bentley origin story ever.

The Angel Line by @reignbowbrite (E) - Part 1 of a hilarious and sweet series where Crowley channels his feelings into narrating explicit romance audiobooks.

Honor System by htebazytook (E) - Aziraphale and Crowley in the wild west, dealing with the fallout from their holy water disagreement.

Thou Knowest Us Happy (T) by Elisi - Post-canon, Gabriel goes to check up on Aziraphale and gets an eyeful. Somehow much more meaningful and lovely than I just made it sound from that summary.

The Meaning of the Word (T) by @justkeeptrekkin - Post-canon, Aziraphale and Crowley become professors at Oxford to keep an eye on Adam. A sweet and funny look at Aziraphale and Crowley’s changed (or not?) lives post-Armaggedon.

Bonus! shoot.

Anthony J. Crowley, Retired Demon and AirBnb Superhost (G) by TheOldAquarian - Absolutely hilarious meta!fic. I love a meta!fic, don’t you? This one is SO funny.

https://twitter.com/archeometrie/status/1170031822614474752?s=12

I’ve been making gay knights (and dames) collages on my phone at work

Something I find incredibly cool is that they’ve found neandertal bone tools made from polished rib bones, and they couldn’t figure out what they were for for the life of them. 

Until, of course, they showed it to a traditional leatherworker and she took one look at it and said “Oh yeah sure that’s a leather burnisher, you use it to close the pores of leather and work oil into the hide to make it waterproof. Mine looks just the same.” 

“Wait you’re still using the exact same fucking thing 50,000 years later???”

“Well, yeah. We’ve tried other things. Metal scratches up and damages the hide. Wood splinters and wears out. Bone lasts forever and gives the best polish. There are new, cheaper plastic ones, but they crack and break after a couple years. A bone polisher is nearly indestructible, and only gets better with age. The more you use a bone polisher the better it works.”

It’s just. 

50,000 years. 50,000. And over that huge arc of time, we’ve been quietly using the exact same thing, unchanged, because we simply haven’t found anything better to do the job.