Moved

“You know, I can hear you, I am a celestial being.”

“I’m an angel, you ass.”

“I’m aproximately the size of the Crysler building”

or those times when Dean says things like: “Can you lift this.” and Cas is all *bitch, please*

*just look at me, doing all the work* *I’m fabulous, aren’t I?*

and this one just speaks for itself:

i honestly believe that sleep deprivation is the biggest ignored/neglected root cause of health dangers that prematurely kill adults

ask me sometime about the role of sleep in the leptin ghrelin cycle and how its interruption destabilizes weight homeostasis

or about the new research showing that heart disease is not caused by fat, like we thought for years, but by inflammation in the circulatory system whose root cause is unknown but one of the prime suspects is, you guessed it, sleep deprivation

but nobody wants to hear that lack of sleep is killing people. employers don’t want to hear it. and god knows that having sold their waking hours to capitalism to survive workers don’t want to lose the only time they have left to them to live their lives, mostly stolen from sleep

our society places almost zero value on sleep

on enough sleep

on uninterrupted sleep

on regular, predictable, cycling sleep

- Humans are not meant to sleep for extended periods of uninterrupted sleep. 

By this I don’t mean “humans shouldn’t have 8+ hours of sleep a night”; I mean that we are supposed to sleep for four to five hours (ish), then get up and do something relaxing like reading for a half hour to an hour, then get another bout of four to five hours. This is what our bodies were designed for. 

Sleeping the whole night through was a fad started with the advent of the lightbulb. Sleeping the whole night through is so recent (and artificial) that First Sleep and Second Sleep are mentioned in Dickens’ novels.

- Lack of sleep for even a single night severely compromises your immune system.

If you’re planning on getting little sleep or pulling an all-nighter, make sure to eat lots of fruit and veggies/take vitamins that day. Or even better, get yourself some bee propolis. It’s a natural remedy used for thousands of years in Latin America and is insanely good for boosting up compromised immune systems (if you get the drop kind, put 3 to 4 drops in a spoonful of honey and mix well with a 2nd spoon to mask the strong taste). It has no side effects and is all but impossible to overdose on.

- According to several government bodies around the world, chronic lack of sleep is literally tied for 1st place as the worst kind of torture (the other is solitary isolation)

- Expecting a teen to get up for 8:30 classes is the equivalent of expecting an adult to be at work at 4 am.

After babies, teens are the age group that needs the most amount of sleep. Puberty is exhausting, and the body needs time to recharge. Ideally, a teen should be getting between 10 to 12 hours of sleep at the bare minimum. Most teens are lucky if they manage to get 8. And that’s a gigantic problem; not only does lack of sleep affect mood (which is extra significant when your hormones are already riding a rollercoaster to begin with), but also has massive effects on growth, which is kinda what the whole puberty thing is supposed to be about.

- According to research “starting work before 10 a.m. is tantamount to torture and is making staff sick and stressed”

- Humans were not designed to have the same sleep cycle across the species. Much the opposite in fact.

Night owls and morning people are an actual thing. Because we’re pack creatures, Nature came up with a clever way for our ancestors to always have someone on the lookout for predators and threats: make people naturally alert at varying times so that there’s always someone alert to keep watch. 

A person who thinks of themselves as fundamentally disorganized can still be good at managing large projects and can in fact still present and function in an organized way if they have the right workarounds in place. The problem comes in where nobody else can give them those workarounds – it’s a matter of understanding how oneself functions, which is not only difficult but also time-consuming and painful. It took me ten years to figure out how my brain works, minimum, and I’m still adjusting things ten years after THAT. But the end result is that I am an incredibly mentally chaotic person who happens to appear to be highly organized because I’ve built a lumpy but functional container for every cupful of hot mess in my brain. I’m still chaotic, I just have an system.

break up your paragraphs. big paragraphs are scary, your readers will get scared

fuuuuck epithets. “the other man got up” “the taller woman sat down” “the blonde walked away” nahhh. call them by their names or rework the sentence. you can do so much better than this (exception: if the reader doesn’t know the character(s) you’re referring to yet, it’s a-okay to refer to them by an identifying trait)

blunette is not a thing

new speaker, new paragraph. please.

“said” is such a great word. use it. make sweet love to it. but don’t kill it

use “said” more than you use synonyms for it. that way the use of synonyms gets more exciting. getting a sudden description of how a character is saying something (screaming, mumbling, sighing) is more interesting that way.

if your summary says “I suck at summaries” or “story better than summary” you’re turning off the reader, my dude. your summary is supposed to be your hook. you gotta own it, just like you’re gonna own the story they’re about to read

follow long sentences w short ones and short ones w long ones. same goes for paragraphs

your writing is always better than you think it is. you just think it’s bad because the story’s always gonna be predicable to the one who’s writing it

Dean might walk past Cas in the library, watching how the angel is trying to pick a book, and Dean will tap on Castiel’s right shoulder, saying “Hey, Cas.” And when Cas turns to look at him, Dean will kiss him, briefly, before walking off.

Castiel will make coffee in the morning and he will kiss Dean everywhere while the hunter makes breakfast, only kissing him in the lips when there’s no food in risk of being burnt.

They might be shopping together in the grocery store and Dean will kiss Castiel every time the angel gets a pecan pie in the cart.

Castiel might find Dean sitting somewhere and he will kiss him before joining him by his side.

Castiel might do something adorable, or cute, or dorky or just something that Dean considers so Cas that Dean will kiss him with a big smile on his lips.

Dean might be humming some of his favorite songs while he drives and Castiel will grab Dean’s right hand and kiss his palm, making Dean blush.

They might be stuck on a case and Dean will kiss Cas on his hairline while they’re both looking for something in the lore.

Dean might ramble on something he is really passionate about and Castiel will smile at him and kiss him, happy about Dean’s enthusiasm.

make him understand? make him certain, make him sure, make him realise how long and how deep and how wholly he’s loved? how completely he’s wanted? how entirely he’s needed? crowley has these lines too. he’s less sure of how effective they’ll be, but there’ll be words, someday, for him to say. things he wants to tell aziraphale, as soon as aziraphale is ready to hear him. things he wants aziraphale to know, not because he wants to make a point but only because aziraphale deserves to know everything there is to know about love. 

he waits for aziraphale to ask for these; he waits for aziraphale to want them too. aziraphale’s choice, always–aziraphale has had so few, with heaven breathing down his neck. crowley wants to stand at aziraphale’s side, not push or prod him forward. he’s waited a long time already. he can wait a little while more.

When Dean returned from Hell, he thought it was all over. The demons, the deals. He vowed to never dig at a crossroads again.

Then Jo and Ellen died.

He marched himself down to the crossroads and dug, buried the stupid box in the stupid hole, and turned to face a stupid face.

“Dean-”

“Don’t give me that shit, Crowley! They just died! They fucking died and-… and…”

Dean was shaking and tears were falling down his cheeks. Crowley huffed in irritation and held him awkwardly as Dean’s crying subsided.

“Let me make a deal,” Dean whispered.

“No,” Crowley whispered back.

—

Sam was dead.

Heh. “Dead.”

If only that’s all it was.

Dean had screamed at the crossroads night after night until, finally, Crowley appeared, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Bloody hell,” Crowley bitched. “You’re driving all of us insane! Can’t you take the hint?”

“Me for him. Immediately. I ain’t asking for time. I-… I’m asking for my brother.”

Crowley sighed. “As tempting as those lips might be, boy, the answer is no.”

Dean stared at him, his face slowly falling as he realized the truth. Sammy was gone, and there was nothing he could do.

“Fuck,” Crowley muttered, taking a step forward to catch Dean as he fell to his knees. Crowley rolled his eyes and rubbed Dean’s back until the shaking had subsided.

—

Castiel walked into that damn river.

“Dean, really. We have to quit meeting like this.”

Dean’s hands were in his pockets. His head was down.

“Can you bring him back?” Dean asked softly.

“I won’t make a deal with you, Dean.”

This time, Dean closed the gap, resting his forehead against Crowley’s shoulder and closing his eyes.

“Can you just kill me now and get this over with, then?”

Crowley sighed and held Dean close. “Afraid not.”

—

Dean was throwing shit this time.

Every item in the damn box.

He was throwing it at Crowley, face red, tears streaming, voice hoarse.

“He was my father! Why can’t you just take me instead?!”

Crowley ducked under a bone. “Believe me, Squirrel. We were both fond of dear old Bobby. My answer, however, is still no.”

“Fuck you!”

Crowley sighed and pulled Dean in, holding him easily despite his punching and kicking. “Calm down, love. You’re going to tear my suit.”

Dean’s struggles subsided. He muttered, “Fuck your suit,” without any real bite behind the words.

—

Dean blinked blearily in surprise.

“Beat you here this time. I’m sensing a trend.”

“Charlie…”

“Yes. Charlie. You seem very intent upon sacrificing yourself for the people you love, you know. It’s somewhat of a character flaw.”

Dean just looked at him through red-rimmed eyes. “Please?”

“You already know my answer, darling.” Crowley held out his arms, and Dean stumbled into them, hiding his face in Crowley’s shoulder.

—

Dean patted the dirt back onto the box and laid down, curled into the fetal position. The night wind blew his hair, and he shivered. Crickets chirped, someone honked a horn very far away, and the stars twinkled.

No one showed up.

Dean squeezed his eyes shut and tried to forget what had happened.

It didn’t work.

“C'mon,” Dean whispered. “Show up. You gotta show up. You always-…” His voice drifted off, breath shuddering.

Sam found him in the morning, ushering him into the car.