SilentAuror: I am the Real

Omg yay, my fic The Impossible Word just reached 40K hits!! This is the series 3 fix-it I wrote to specifically demonstrate how very much I don't believe in infidelity, lol. It'll give you an ulcer for the angst, but dare I promise there's a happy ending?

They were so close to getting it right. Sort of. Some of it.

***Spoilers ahoy!***

I thought they had hit on the right track when Aziraphale raised the subject of free will. That’s the key: that humans (and arguably, angels and demons) have the power to make their own choices. That any angel could resign or refuse to go along with the Second Coming. That any demon could choose to be redeemable. I mean, Crowley quit. They were close.

In series 1/episode 1, it’s Crowley who points out the injustice of the kraken and gorillas having to die in Armageddon. He’s essentially never stopped pointing out the inherent injustice of the created order, from stars to sea creatures, not having the right to exist. It makes all the sense for Aziraphale to have called Crowley the best angel. And it makes no sense for Crowley to have chosen to have everything be erased and re-made.

And here’s the thing: IT WASN’T NECESSARY. There’s no way that their only choice was “accept this bullshit set-up with a deity who hates everything and everyone, and everyone is condemned to be permanently assigned to being either good or evil for all eternity” OR to have everything destroyed. Why not choose to erase heaven and hell and God and Satan and just bring everything else back to the way it was?

It’s frustrating to me because in my one and only GO fic, that’s what I had them do in the end: destroy heaven and hell and give everything in creation a redemption if it was wanted, and the angels and demons alike were made to live somewhere real, not in some sterile or slimy bureaucracy. I also had Crowley ask God some real questions and get the answers he actually deserved. (If you’re interested, that’s here: All the Morning Stars)

Speaking of: Jesus, what a bleak take on a deity. When the angels are, apart from Muriel and Aziraphale, just as bad or worse than the so-called demons, and God is apparently worse than indifferent, but actively hostile, it really says a lot about the writers, particularly the one who isn’t Terry Pratchett. Series 1’s God was quirky, a little nonsensical, with a Great and/or Ineffable Plan that wasn’t confirmed, but seemingly driven ahead by the angels themselves. Series 2’s God is where the serious callousness comes in toward Job, and series 3’s God is considerably worse. Believe what you want, but what is the point of believing in any sort of deity or divinity that’s completely indifferent to the creation they made? Who is actively interested in destroying it? Who is demonstrably unjust and uncaring? And the thing is, knowing what we now know about NG, this view really does make sense with his behaviour – he clearly doesn’t think that there is any higher power to be accountable to in the long run. My own faith isn’t super certain, but if there’s a God or source of energy or whatever you want to call it, in my view, it has to be the source of love. It should, in this universe, be the thing that makes Aziraphale love the way he does. It should be the source of what made Jesus, as he was shown here, the way he was. How could that lovely young man have been a part of that cruel deity? Not only does it not make sense theologically; it doesn’t make sense narratively.

I didn’t want an ending that sees some version of them together, but empty of its 6,000-year history. I wanted THEM. Left to be themselves, balancing each other, caring for humanity – and the gorillas and kraken and stars and nebulas.

Other critiques: the entire gangster/Bentley narrative was pointless and unnecessary. There are plot holes galore. If Crowley lost his powers, how did he fly the Bentley to the eternal flame (and what in the Thor: Ragnarok was that bit of theft??)? If the Book of Life removals meant that a person had never existed, how did Crowley and Aziraphale remember that there had ever been anyone else? What was the point of Satan? Why was he nicer than God, FFS? What was Michael’s deal? Where WAS everyone else in heaven and hell? All of hell was seemingly staffed by two demons and all of heaven seemingly had five or six at most. Where was the host?

Did Aziraphale not actually miss Crowley at all? I hated so much about their interactions, from Aziraphale lying about why he’d come to Crowley, refusing to apologize for the longest time, and somehow forgetting that he actually cares about the rest of the universe, too. I’ve seen people loving on Aziraphale’s ridiculous turn in hell, but it was an idiotic waste of time that could have been spent a whole lot better. I wish that NG hadn’t written any part of this. I wish they’d hired John Finnemore back. I wish they’d done this thing justice. I wish that this writing had been anywhere near the quality of the fiction this fandom has produced.

Larch Valley & Sentinel Pass hike, starting with Moraine Lake and the forest switchbacks:

Lovely Larch Valley and the Valley of the Ten Peaks:

Sentinel Pass:

And the view into Paradise Valley beyond the pass, with the sentinels on Pinnacle Mountain on the left:

Tunnel Mountain Village I campground:

Plain of Six Glaciers hike:

Guess what??? I finished the hiking fic!!!! As predicted, it's clocked in just above 35,000 words!

Title: The Narrow Ridge

Pairing: Sherlock/John (Sherlock POV)

Rating/Length: Explicit, 35,777 words (single chapter format)

Summary:

Mycroft sits down. “There may have been a murder,” he says. “Possibly even two.”

Sherlock bores his eyes into Mycroft’s face. “There are murders all the time. Why can’t the Yard handle it?”

“Because it’s in Canada,” Mycroft informs him.

This catches them both off guard. John leans forward. “I’m sorry, what? Canada?”

Omg! My story The Bells of King's College just reached 30,000 hits, exactly! That's so cool! I have three fics using variations on the "fake couple for a case" trope. The first, Bridging the Ravine, follows the standard pattern, where they have to pretend to be a couple and it works out well for them, leading them to become a real couple. In the third, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, they absolutely must not look or a couple, or be clocked as one once they become one, for the sake of the case. In this second one, they have to pose as a couple because they're investigating murders at a wedding show. In this case, posing this way actually just exacerbates the tensions already there between them, as it's set just a couple of weeks after series 4 ends. They have a lot to work out, plus five cold cases to solve, so there's a good bit of murder plot in this one, too!