#glitterary

The brilliant @jickdraws made this absolutely breathtaking art for chapter 8 of my fic the humble as the proudest sail! (Which should be finished in the next couple of months, if you feel like starting a longfic with an end in sight…)

I think most people have at least one sliding doors moment: a poor financial decision, an encounter with the police, a career choice that didn't work out, an academic fuck-up, a relationship you should have left sooner. I certainly do. And you think: if only I'd made a different choice, that one time, my life would be so much better.

It's easy to blame yourself for doing the wrong thing or making the wrong choice, and I think most of us who feel that kind of guilt do eventually find a way of forgiving ourselves. We had good reasons for the choice we made at the time, even if they look foolish in hindsight. We can reason that things might have turned out the same, or worse, if we'd done what we now wish we had.

Even having forgiven myself and my youthful mistakes, though, I've only recently realised this: I have been living in the shadow of an imaginary version of myself for more than half my life. The version of me who didn't fuck up an important exam, who got the grades for her first-choice university, who therefore was able to get a better job and build on it, and is now working for the EU as some kind of fancy human rights lawyer. She's so much better than the real me, an underemployed freelance translator who has bumbled from admin job to admin job and is looking to change careers yet again.

But here's the thing: that perfect version of me is imaginary. I never think about lawyer me sitting in interminable meetings and not getting anything done! I never think of diplomat me losing her job because of Brexit! I never think about how that version of me doesn't have time for hobbies or deep friendships because her job takes up all her time and energy. She's fake! She's scamming me out of appreciating what I do have, and what I do love about my current life, and who I am.

Comparison is the thief of joy, and I have created an imaginary version of myself that I have been torturing my real self with for the past two decades.

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/38871951

“Stede, what kind of party did Lucius say this was?” Ed was starting to get the feeling that it was a rather more specialist gathering than either of them had realised.

The facts:

Aziraphale doesn't like miracling his coat because he’ll still be aware of the flaws underneath

Aziraphale cannot tell when Crowley has mended his coat with magic  

Aziraphale’s coat has been in tip-top condition for over 180 years

There is absolutely no way a coat worn daily since the 1830s has survived to the year of our lord 2k19 without getting frayed, scuffed, ripped, marked or otherwise damaged 

Conclusion:

Crowley was rather proud of his houseplants, which was of course a sin, and so Aziraphale should probably be thwarting him on purpose. He felt rather guilty about trying so hard to keep them alive. Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it—Aziraphale seemed to be doing the thwarting despite his best efforts not to.