#starryfull13

Hi everyone and especially @starryfull13​ ! I made this art for you as a Gift Exchange event by @do-it-with-style-events and I hope you will like it ^^ At the beginning I wasn’t sure which of prompts I was going to draw until I started and these two came up itself. It’s also my first attempt to draw Nanny Ashtoreth and Brother Francis and I hope I captured them well (high heels are very impractical in garden, angel). Thank you for joining to this event, I had a great time to draw them!

Hello!

A quick AO3 search resulted in this fic: The Vicar’s Husband by the_moonmoth (T)

“Christ,” Crowley groaned.

“Ah, no,” Aziraphale said, amused at Crowley’s expense in a way that was very much at odds with the dog collar he had just revealed. “Just his messenger on Earth."

Hello my darling!!

Thanks in advance!!!!!!

Yes, of course! It’s always fine for people to print and bind their own copies of my fanfic and I’m thrilled that you want to make something so amazing out of my words. The only thing I have to say no to is when people want to upload the fic to a self-publishing platform like Lulu, because that starts getting into risky copyright waters. But making your own physical copy is fine and I’m terribly flattered. :)

Thank you! I’m glad you liked it, and welcome to the joy of fanfic. :)

As for the question, it depends on the mood of the scene and the tone of the second character’s reassurance. You could go with “soothe” if you want to emphasize that they’re being gentle and soft with it, or you could alternatively use a word that implies speed - they “jump in”, they “interrupt”, they “say quickly” - to show that they’re leaping to stop the other person feeling bad. You could use actions instead of descriptive words, as well, and again, that gives different impressions:

“I was only joking,” said Person A, with a contrite expression. - they regret panicking A

“I was only joking,” said Person A, eyes wide. - they’re surprised at the reaction

“I was only joking,” said Person A, reaching out to lay a gentle hand on B’s shoulder. - their priority is reassuring B

Also, bookmark thesaurus.com! I know you know what a thesaurus is, but the website version has the neat advantage that sometimes you can home in on a word even without being very clear on what you want. For example, if you look at the page on for “reassure”, none of the words on there quite seem to fit what you’re asking here, to my mind, but “comfort” seems kind of closer? And when you click on that, you get a list that includes my first suggestion, “soothe”.

Sometimes if I’m not quite sure of the word I want, I search for the closest thing to it - even if that’s incredibly vague - and just keep clicking on things that are closer to what I want, until something catches my eye.

However! My number one recommendation when using a thesaurus is NOT to choose words that you don’t already use pretty regularly. The idea of it is to jog your memory to find the right word out of your existing vocabulary. If you pick words that you’re not as familiar with or wouldn’t ordinarily use, it can end up standing out like a sore thumb. (For the love of something, do not have Person A “inspirit” Person B.)