Dropped Leaves

#1. You should be able to lay down on the floor (face down or back) and be able to get up without your hands. If you can't? Spend a little bit every day just doing that, laying on the floor and getting up again no hands style, then laying down again (you'd be surprised how fast it wears you out after a few times)

#2. You should be able to get up out of a chair without using your hands or grabbing on to anything. Can't? Fucking start training mother fucker! Just a few uppies every day could save your damn life when you get older!

#3. You should be able to turn your neck to the side without twisting your upper body in the same direction, you should be able to turn your head freely without moving your shoulders, chest or torso! Start looking up loosy goosy neck exercises! It makes such a HUGE difference!

#4. You should be able to motherfucking stand on one foot and keep your balance for longer then 15 seconds. Haha sounds easy right? Thats what I thought when I tried after watching that vid, i was horrified to find how hard it was! I started doing "one leggy style" standing any chance I got, when I'm in line somewhere, when I'm watching a video... just do a few rounds of 10 seconds on each leg for like 5 min every day!

You get older and you think you still have all the same limberness as you did when you were 8, but whens the last fucking time you ran around and played like an 8 year old? You loose that flexibility so subtlety and then one day when you need it? BAM ITS GONE

that he blushed when he described crowley as a wily adversary (keeps me on my toes)

that he smiled when he realized the bentley was back without a scratch after having blown up

that he refused crowley a suicide pill

that he kept an eye on crowley for 26 years after 1941, then sought him out and gave him the holy water so that he didn't have to get it himself. but i can't have you risking your life. not even for something dangerous. if we must quote it then at least let's quote it right.

that he went to hell for crowley and made sure they wouldn't bother him anymore

that he only ever cared about crowley not being destroyed

that no way aziraphale didn't check on crowley in three years

took off his glasses and hearing aids because apparently he didn’t need them anymore

saw faces in two trees and made up an extensive dialogue between a 19th century british explorer and his frenemy a lowly ornithologist

explained to me in detail the entire plot of a movie called the incredible mr. limpet

went down to the docks (we’re camping at a lake) and began directing imaginary photoshoots

had to be physically stopped from enthusiastically waving down a police officer

polished off the night by listening to sgt. pepper’s lonely hearts club band. claimed to feel the disembodied presence of john lennon (we’ve all been there)

like, not even great, not even good, but just okay, just safe, sad that it was over but happy that it happened, a closed book with a happy if mediocre ending.

and then it wasn't, and it knocked me entirely off kilter, and the worst part was it completely blindsided me, it wasn't just mediocre, or rushed, or boring, or disappointing.

It was all of those things and also tragic. It made me sad.

and the thing is...before that, I never could have imagined that Good Omens would make me sad, would have me break down in tears inconsolable days afterwards, it never even occurred to me as a possibility.

It was one of the few things I had that kept me safe inside my own mind, it was a talisman against sadness, it was where I walked when I needed sanctuary, and now it feels like there is a giant pit in the middle of my former haven that I have to worry about falling into and being trapped.

because Good Omens made me a promise, as a viewer and a reader 7 years ago, that the world is saved because it is worth saving, that everybody lives, everybody, even telemarketers.

That Anti-Christ's grow up with their best friends in their Kingdom of Tadfield because that's enough of the world for them, that Witches fall in love with Witchfinders, that Prophetesses make their own destiny, that Death and all his friends will ride motorbikes to the end, but not today, no not today. Due in very small part, really just moral support, of a Demon and an Angel who wanted to stay, just a little bit longer, maybe another 6000 years, go for a picnic, dine at the Ritz. That promise was broken, if this is the legacy that they want to give Sir Terry Pratchett I would say its as bad as spitting on his grave.

Sure people complain about Game of Thrones, or Supernatural and probably Stranger Things. But did it have people grieving and reeling and saying their safe space is gone?

What a legacy. What a horrific legacy to inflict on so many people. And then try and put Pratchett’s name on it. How dare they. How dare Amazon and the three asshole writers responsible for this.

Jim didn’t love Beelzebub. Gabriel did. He needed his memories for a reason. Anthony doesn’t know or love Aziraphale. He loves a completely different guy. Which is nice and all. But I wanted to see Aziraphale and Crowley happy. Safe. Free. I wanted them to stay in my universe. I thought we shared it!

I get what people mean about their dear ones when they lose memories. I care what people say about their own lost memories. I'd never say they were replaced by another person. But that's not at all what we are talking about here. It's a new universe with brand new people. (Which if determinism is not true and god is gone should not look like the old ones?)

And I am glad if you found comfort and happiness in S3! I wish I did too.

I am the wrong person to talk to when it comes to erasure and replacements and how shiny new unblemished things are a clean slate and therefore better. My apartment is filled to the brim with old things. I am helplessly attached to that which is broken and battered and resistant in spite of the trials they’ve been put through. I treasure every chip and crack that marks the antique porcelain and vintage ceramic I rescue from flea markets and I adore the crumbling gilt gesso frames I pluck from the trash. I am not put off by mirrors that have begun to lose their silvering and I still think leather bound books are a treasure even as their spines splinter and unravel under the pressure of a long life. I honor the craftsmanship that cannot be replicated today and that has been forgotten or shoved to the side as unnecessary and frivolous. I save things at my job every day, works on paper in such bad condition after being exposed to the elements and that which is life that they’re financially meaningless but mean everything to those who love them in spite of their damage.

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht. 

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.

Inspired by the fabulous @dragonnan's Blood and Romance (included by permission)

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Too old for this: my first half-thought as I flail and thrash my way back to consciousness. I’m underwater, aching to breathe, but I’ll die if I do; but it isn’t cold enough, I’m not wet, where the hell I hurt all over and something’s wrong, it’s dark where is Sherlock

If I’m not under water, I can breathe; I open my lips a hair and no water floods in, so I take a careful breath and it’s air. Not sweet, God no, tastes like mould and sewage, but definitely air, and shakily I suck it in.

I blink and try to focus but can’t see anything. Where the hell am I, and where is Sherlock? There—a second complete thought, even if it’s just the ragged scraps from before stringing together into sense, that’s got to be a good sign.

Okay. Okay. Stop, where am I. Listen.

In a silence so loud, a darkness so complete, I can hear my racing heartbeat even over my ragged panting—but nothing else, not close by. I can’t breathe through my nose at all. I try to shift to generate some sound, get some idea at least of what kind of surface I’m near or on. Take stock: everything hurts but I can’t tell from what, I can’t gather any sensory data to extrapolate anything from. (Sherlock would say, deduce. I’m not Sherlock. He’d know what to do to get some clarity here; I’m just starting to panic.)

finish reading on AO3

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A Thousand Words: A picture's proverbially worth a thousand words and often inspires them, though the words may be many more or many fewer, as the Muse decides. Each chapter is a one-shot, inspired (so far) by @kettykika78, @justanobsessedpan, @stephdrawsjohnlock, @bluebellofbakerstreet, @petite-madame, and now dragonnan: more to come.

Thank you to all the artists who do fanworks: you are a  constant inspiration. And to the betas (@copperplatebeech for this ficlet) you are a godsend. And to the readers: we wouldn't be posting our stories without you.

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