mistakes were made

OH MY GOD YAY!! 

I mean, cool, whatever. I guess I could share a little bit of that fic. That’s fine.

(yayayayayayayay eeeeeeeeeee)

Okay, part of me wanted to blast you with the entire chapter, but that’s 25-ish pages so I’m forcing myself to show restraint here and only include the tail end. There’s a little bit of context missing, because it’s the last section of Chapter 10 of a fic that so far has at least 32 chapters, but I think it all makes sense. It’s basically just “here’s what happened in that cycle when everybody else was a statue person” and it was, you know, not a good time. (There’s some implied Magcretia, sorry not sorry.) 

Plus it’s really good. I know that sounds arrogant, but I’ve spent the last 4-5 years hating every word I’ve ever written, and I’m going to enjoy this confidence for as long as it chooses to stay.

So anyway, I hope you enjoy! 

There are no line breaks on tumblr anymore so this is the part where the actual writing starts:

When the Hunger arrived, it was a relief more than anything.

Lucretia had been in the middle of defending The Starblaster from a group of marauders climbing like ants all over the dented and hastily-repaired sides of the ship, trying to figure out if she could possibly shake them all free without having to resort to the magic she’d deduced made it possible for the court to find her, when the sky turned dark and everything went gray. 

And her first thought was, Oh thank Pan. (She wasn’t a religious person at all, but enough time with Merle had made the casual prayers second nature.) This nightmare was almost over. In less than an hour, she’d have her family back.

She was so close to seeing Magnus again.

“Fisher, get back in your tank!” she shouted, abandoning the shield she’d been summoning and sprinting to the helm — she’d spent so much time this year running for her life that she could race from one end of the ship to the other without becoming winded. None of the marauders had made it onto the deck, but she felt the air above her head crackle with a spell that blazed past, and as she reached the controls she heard the now-familiar amplified voice call, “You are under arrest for multiple counts of evading the authority of the co — what the hell’s going on here?”

Oh, great. All her friends were here. Now all she needed was for the boar and crocodile to make an appearance.

As the officer began to interrogate the marauders (his side of the conversation still blaring loud and clear), Lucretia took advantage of the confusion to throw the ship forward. She’d had enough foresight to keep the way in front of The Starblaster clear for just this purpose, and while a few hundred yards of ash-colored grass were flattened, she was able to get the ship into the air.

She pointed it up, away from the Hunger — up into space, into nothingness, into any universe except this one, somewhere she’d stared at and imagined but now was finally going into …

If she could get the damaged, shuddering ship up to speed and break through the atmosphere, that was.

If not, everything ended here.

A tentacle of swirling darkness stabbed into the ground inches away from her ship, forcing her to swerve hard and nearly lose her footing. She threw all her weight on the acceleration as more of the Hunger’s tentacles latched onto the planet, the labored roar of the engines nearly drowning out the screams of panic from the people below.

As The Starblaster rocketed over a shining city with strange statues and up into the sky, a whisper made Lucretia look around — before realizing it had come from inside her own head.

We’ve been looking for you.

Cool, right? Sure wish those line breaks had made it into the post. Really woulda, like, heightened the tension and all that jazz.

Jeremy:

Andy:

Meg:

Fiona:

Steffie (that’s a gif of RDJ rolling his eyes, in case it was unclear):

Alfredo (sort of. It counts):

Jackie (fredo’s gf):

Mariel (links to a clip of “hell to the naw naw — bishop bullwinkle”):

Bonus Mariel liking the tweet of one of the victims:

Lindsay (links to the “say what again?” bit from pulp fiction):

✨💖✨

Hey! Thank you so much to everyone who came to see us at MCM Birmingham! And all of the other shows and signings that we did this year! It’s been an amazing year and I’m honestly so lucky to have so many supportive readers. Thank you!

Aziraphale: is supposed to be Lawful Good, but it’s always the good he’s enjoyed, never the lawful, and that puts him in huge opposition to Heaven (esp. as Gabriel in increasingly Lawful Evil anyway). After the Nonpocalypse, he’ll be able to act on this by being epically Chaotic Good, and it will be superb.

The SHEER AMOUNT of utterly feral benevolence the two of them are going to bring to Earth once they’ve got their shit together will be outstanding. Arms sales to oppressive regimes scuppered when the warheads turn out to be full of confetti or glitter. Politicians suddenly finding themselves unable to open their mouths without the truth coming out IN SONG*. Charities bringing aid to victims of famine and war and climate disaster find their finances and supplies in better health than ever, and also that some of it is randomly entertaining as well as useful - rice that makes children’s tongues change colour (the sound of the children giggling in response gives strength and hope to aid workers run ragged and raw with pain and overwork), blankets with dancing animals on, medical equipment that self-sterilises once it’s passed its useful life and then turns into footballs and spinning tops.

They remove Newt’s curse (naturally), and distribute it between unpleasant individuals so that no fascist, alleged POTUS, or arsehole anti-trans former comedy writers can login to Twitter, ever. They do the coin-on-pavement trick, but only on billionaires. They bless with absurdity, and tempt towards compassion.

And if Adam rolls his eyes at his ridiculous uncles on occasion and says things like, “you know, this is *exactly* the kind of stuff you’ve told me I can’t do any more or I’ll risk ending the world”, they have the grace to look sheepish, but then hint gently that perhaps Adam and the rest of the Them have some ideas for some other tricks a pair of Chaotic Good not-quite-angels/not-quite-demons can play on the world. And they do. They always do.

Chapter 1: In which Kevin makes yet another bad decision

“-- But they are a fundamental part of the history of this great planet, a planet that we all know was rescued from the Negabytes’ Fortress, by the all-powerful Xemüg!”

Kevin was beginning to regret elbowing his way into the crowd; what had seemed from the window of Muffin Tops like an interesting diversion was obviously a lot weirder than he’d anticipated. “Is he still talking about the Wood Scouts?” he muttered to the person next to him, only turning when a flicker of maroon streaked into the corner of his vision -- a color he’d know anywhere, saw in his dreams. Associated so thoroughly with shame and longing that before his mind registered it, his heart ached with a stab of yearning that momentarily ripped the breath from his chest.

“Lee --” he began, his mouth opening even before he’d fully turned around, The splash of burgundy was further away now, a short, frizzy ponytail and the profile of a familiarly annoyed face. Not noticing him, she reached up, tightened her ponytail with a sharp yank, and disappeared into the crowd as it began to disperse.

Gwen, right. The little sister. He’d heard she was back in town, working at one of the camps.

Without her brother, Leon.

Which was super fine, not to mention normal and in no way utterly devastating. (And Dirty Kevin now had zero intentions of abandoning all his plans for the evening to go home and blubber over a pint of ice cream about ghosts from high school.)

Get it together, you fucking disaster.

He groaned inwardly and turned back to the small barrel that served as the town’s open-air stage --

“Why, hello there!”

-- ending up nose-to-nose with the man who’d just been up there, rambling about popcorn and history and Xemüg.

“Jesus Christ!” He stumbled back -- nearly knocking over a tiny old woman with a crippling (and lucrative) opioid addiction. “Sorry, Helen,” he mumbled breathlessly, righting himself and trying to control his galloping heart rate before turning his attention back to the blond stranger. “What d’you want?” You absolute freak.

He cocked his head to the side, smiling widely. “My name is Daniel,” he said, slowly enunciating each word like the host of a children’s show, and Kevin got the immediate sense he was being fucked with. “And something about you caught my eye, so I just had to say hello!”

“Something.” Yeah, something like yelling his ex’s name in the middle of a crowd of people. “So . . . hi. I should go.”

“Don’t be in such a hurry!” Daniel’s fingers closed around his wrist, his grip frigid and brittle and surprisingly strong. “You look like someone who has a lot of negativity in your life, Kevin.”

He froze.

To which I nodded solemnly, both out of agreement, surprise and also a healthy amount of awkward fear. He nodded and went, “You get it.”

I thought that would be the end of it.

Except ten minutes later he came back and told me he found out (she’s bi) and that both of us have a shot. I said “You more than me.” because he’s attractive and popular. 

My math teacher was trying to fix the rolling whiteboard and he just offhand said “This would be easier with a wrench”