#and is definitely not meant to be forcing decisions onto mankind

[thegoodomensdumpster]

ABOUT SHADWELL AND TRACY

OK so. This is probably going to be the meta nobody asked for + the meta that has already existed for 30 years ( I read a bunch of it before the show came out, but I never found one tackling what I’m going to talk about, so chances are it exists but I missed it and now it’ll be impossible to find ). I’ve been wondering, a lot, how exactly the relationship between Tracy and Shadwell was narratively useful. (Especially Shadwell, what is up with Shadwell, really??? Why did he have to be ... the way he is???) Don’t get me wrong : I know perfectly well how nearly everything / everyone in Good Omens mirrors something / someone else. The Four Horsepersons / The Them obviously, a perfect mirror of humanity’s problems (self made be it for Death ) and how to fix them ( with hope, courage, love, and proper education for newest generations who are dealing with passed mistakes… )

And then all the duos echo each other and act as informations about every character . Crowley / Aziraphale Newt / Anathema Tracy / Shadwell So I had the nagging suspicion that Tracy and Shadwell would, perhaps, make more sense to me if I started comparing them to each other and to their counterparts.

After all, that’s how me (and dozens other meta writers) have managed to understand Newt and Anathema.

Newt is reasonable and rationnal, and he is also free and questionning. Anathema has lived a life devoided of surprises, all according to the Great Plan prophecies of a long dead ancestor she can not directly talk to.

Newt and Anathema get together because of the prophecies, but STAY together because they chose to, and Newt is the one to bring that choice to Anathema. Do I need to say which of them echoes Crowley and which of them echoes Aziraphale ? What about Shadwell and Tracy then ?

Welp. Let’s dissect them, shall we ?

Madame Tracy is, arguably, the most formidable character of the lot. OK, I may be a bit bias, I adore the woman. But with good reasons !

Deep down, she’s got one of the – if not the – strongest moral compass of the whole characters cast. She has confidence in her morals and ethics enough to trust a supernatural entity who just invaded her body( after being rightfully offended and scolding him a little ) AND to then go against said entity, an angel of the Lord, when he’s about to do something reprehensible. 

Badass. But on the surface, what is she ? She’s a marginal, a prostitute, a con artist (something that I’m not entirely happy about as I find it morally reprehensible, but it is very likely she pretends to be a medium to be some sort of cheap psychiatrist to people who can’t afford it so… I’ll allow it. But anyway, it is also important that she’s not a parangon of pure unaltered virtue, so this makes sense). She is all the things Shadwell says she is, and in his mouth ( as well as in the eyes of society) they are insults. Worse : she exudes femininity, she is comfortable in her sexuality, she’s a businesswoman, she’s self-sufficent and financially independant (she’s even the one who gives money to Shadwell…). None of this is bad, but most of it is (or, hopefully, was) regarded as bad.

Ok, we got Tracy figured out. Let’s try to understand Shadwell now. Shadwell… Is also a marginal, in a way (he has been to prison, after all, if we include TV Omens canon). But he’s another kind of marginal.

He is not financially independant (again, see : asking money to Tracy, and also, scamming Crowley and Aziraphale for years, which is a way bigger and morally reprehensible con than whatever Tracy is doing with her fake medium act. But tbh, I’m so impressed he scammed not one, but two supernatural entities for funding the same useless organization, I can’t be mad at him. Not for that, I mean.) He isn’t nice, he isn’t polite, he … seems to be everything Tracy isn’t. And, as Tracy is a beacon of light and kindness, it makes sense Shadwell would be a rude blackhole of hatred. But, more than being a lightsucker, Shadwell’s opposition to Tracy makes sense if we shift the way we look at them. Tracy is what society deems morally reprehensible but she isn’t immoral, and more than that, she is very modern. Confident in herself. Taking her fate into her own hands. Turned towards the future.

Meanwhile, Shadwell is entirely turned towards the past, so much so that his traditionnalism is too much by present’s standards, and that is the bit that makes him the most marginal. He wears his sexism and his homophobia as badges of honor, and runs A WITCHFINDER ARMY. A very definitely outdated organization that has for goal : BURNING WITCHES. And gays, too, but mainly witches. This is an activity that was once considered ethical, necessary, ultimately good, but isn’t anymore. Heaven approved of the Witchfinders’ Army on these « morally good » premisses, and Hell approved of it on the cruelty and horror it was actually responsible for. Society has moved on. Shadwell hasn’t. At least in surface . Because, just like Madame Tracy’s activities as a prostitute and self-made woman can raise eyebrows but ultimately don’t define her as a moral person, Shadwell… hnnngh, this is more difficutl to say this about him, but when time comes for him to act on his rotten outdated thrown in our face moral principles, he is actually siding with Tracy. He protects her, he refuses to shoot Adam, he chooses to do what he finds to be morally good, and he and Tracy share the same morals. 

(Also the one time Shadwell thinks he has killed someone he is genuinely shocked, so he is far from being a cold blooded killer. Only when he wants to protect Tracy or prevent Armageddon - and after Aziraphale has shown he isn’t really dead - does he threateningly raise his finger again. ) ((But homophobia and sexism aren’t a good look on him. Or on anyone else, for that matter. It’s not charming. Tracy, why were you charmed ???? WHY ???? ))

And we can only suppose that Tracy, beacon of light that she is, able to see the best even in the scum of the Earth, already knew that Shadwell and her agreed about what was ultimately important. They’ve had, possibly, years of interactions before the plot of GO kicks in, and maybe Shadwell hasn’t been so consistently horrible all this time and showed her a better side ? I hope ??? But, anyway, the thing is : these characters, Tracy and Shadwell, are made to mirror some of the best and worst things coming out of humanity. Tracy being kinda the worst possible carreer and personnal choice for religious bigots, and Shadwell being so deep into bigotry that it made him terrible even by bigots’ standards. Shadwell’s speech would have made him a hero a few centuries ago, now he’s just a lunatic. Tracy would have been burnt at the stake for her life choices. Now she’s… well, not in danger, at the very least, and besides Shadwell, all the GO characters seem to respect her. ( Or fear her, as is the case for Newt. ) ((I’m joking, I think he likes her, but confident people intimidate him.)) So. We’ve got Tracy who has built herself her own moral compass and is confident in the choices she made despite the hostility and difficulties she may have encountered, and Shadwell who lives according to a bunch of bigotted outdated rules he doesn’t actually believe in all that much. HA. Why does that ring a bell, I wonder… For the sake of not letting any ounce of ambiguity floating in the air, I’m going to spell it out :

Shadwell and the Witchfinders’ rules echo Anathema and her prophecies, and Aziraphale and Heaven’s indoctrination. Meanwhile, Tracy echoes Newt and Crowley for their marginality and self-made moral code (ok it’s less obvious for Newt especially if you haven’t read the book but he is the kind to question stuff constantly, to the point he hesitates a lot and has troubles finding his place in the world, but his – tiny - character arc is that he becomes able to question correctly and make decisions and help others make decisions).

The interesting thing is, in a way, Shadwell embodies the worst surface aspect of being a bigot blindly obeying outdated rules, while Tracy is the best possible outcome of a marginal making a life for themself. Newt and Anathema place somewhere in the middle, Anathema being able to let go of the thing that was ruling her life, and Newt is in the process of learning who he is, getting comfortable with that person and finding a place for himself in the world.

As for Crowley and Aziraphale, their long lives has thrown them in morally grey areas for a looong time, but at the end of GO, once freed from Heaven and Hell -but especially Heaven as Aziraphale has the most work to do to also get rid off his endoctrination completely- they are free to join Tracy, Shadwell, Newt and Anathema into finally becoming the most blooming versions of themselves. It is not too late, no matter how dark or how far back they’re coming from.

But !!! I am not entirely done.

The sword. And the gun. Both weapon given - more or less – to humanity by Aziraphale. The flaming sword, given at the very beginning to Adam and Eve hoping they’d use it to protect themselves, and that ends up in the hands of War. The thundergun, not given but required by Aziraphale to be put to use, right as the Armageddon is about to put an end to humanity, and to be used, this time, to kill someone. And, as I mentionned, both Shadwell and Tracy refuse to shoot.

Aziraphale cannot make humanity obey him, now can he ? Because that’s what it is, ultimately. Humanity. And, as always, free will. Because Tracy and Shadwell represent certain extremes and a lot of grey areas of humanity’s morals and diversity of personnalities, they are -almost- perfect ambassadors of humanity as a whole. Good and Evil bear no meaning around them, they refuse to fit neatly into any category, especially when scrutinized through the lenses of different places and eras as ethics shift constantely. Shadwell shows that even garbage trash men can show empathy, Tracy is the most merciful and kind person, which doesn’t prevent her from being surprisingly strong and adamant when needed. Shadwell and Tracy are part of each other’s life, against all odds, and even if it might have been just because they were neighbours at first, they ultimately chose to remain together. All duos chose to stick to their counterpart in the end. All of them represent the many contradictions of humanity, and how love is the ultimate way to live along together. And they use their free will for love. And while I would not, ever, EVER want to interact with a Shadwell IRL, I now see why it was important to make him the way he is depicted. From a narrative point of view, it was important to make him seemingly irreedemable, only for the one character he harrasses the most to trust and love him, because Tracy knows he, actually, isn’t as bad as it may seem. Because people who might seem horrible are not necessarily the ones who are. Because even Shadwell can love and be loved. And because everybody can improve.

Now, I do not know why the sexism and the homophobia had to be the main choices to convey how much of a bigotted idiot Shadwell was (No, I mean, I think I know why: probably because killing witches and gays were the Witchfinders’ Army main goals, but still, it’s tough on modern audiences - whether this should be taken into account by authors is... quite a debate to have, and maybe the main reason it bothers me? idk idk, I’ve already thought too much at this point). Because despite the fact that some of his lines and his excellent actor made him nice to see on screen (or read in the book for that matter), I have a very hard time liking his character. But that might be the point. I don’t know. Only Tracy can love him. But at least now, it makes more sense to me.

[rpd-rookie]

Under Her Extra-Large Umbrella - Chris Redfield x Reader (Final Part)

Summary: Umbrella is about to send Nemesis to hunt and kill the surviving members of the S.T.A.R.S. You must warn Chris before it’s too late.

Author’s note: This is the last chapter. It’s very angsty but I like how it came out. Hope you’ll like it as much as I liked writing it. 

Part 1 is available here / Part 2 is here 

Warnings: Angst, Death, Violence, Language.

                 Horror struck you. It froze each and every limb of your body, making you unable to move even an eyelash as a cold eerie sensation crawled down your spine. You couldn’t look away from it and it seemed like it couldn’t look away from you either. That face, deformed and scraggy, barely covered in a thin layer of shredded pale skin, staring at you with a single veiled white eye in which no emotion could be read. It was terrifying. An atrocity. And you had made it. And yet, it seemed that your impression was far from unanimous as every scientist around you was looking at the corpse-like creature caged in a pod of amniotic liquid with a bloodcurdling fascination, their eyes gleaming with joy and admiration.

“Ladies and gentlemen, may I present you the new generation of Tyrant, the Nemesis T-Type.”                 Loud applause accompanied by a torrent of compliments instantly made Doctor Rochois smile with pride. “This new Bio Organic Weapon will revolutionize combat in ways our previous Tyrants would have never been able to. Capable of intelligence and self-awareness, the Nemesis T-type is programmed to obey every command and adapt itself as well as his tactics to the conditions surrounding him and he won’t abandon until his task is completed. He is completely infallible and, let’s say it, indestructible.” People started whispering their awe after this latest remark. Certainly were they already imagining the six zeros on their future pay check. It disgusted you. “And as I’m speaking, this specimen that you’re looking at right now is about to be deployed in Raccoon City.”

Your eyes widened in shock and you stared at the creature once again, completely petrified. “Chris.” You whispered as worry tied your stomach in a painful knot.                 “Ladies and Gentlemen, as you must all know by now, in July our lab in the Arklay Mountains was breached, causing a small viral outbreak in the region of Raccoon City that we managed to control, not to worry. But we cannot allow the secrets that escaped with the virus to be revealed to the public eye. We cannot let the S.T.A.R.S unit compromising our future. As our founder Oswell E. Spencer once said, Umbrella is God! We are gods creating a new world with an advanced race of human beings! Evolution is in our hands. The future of mankind in his our hands and we cannot let the hubris of a stupid unit of police sabotage all this. In Greek mythology, the Gods sent the goddess Nemesis to punish arrogant humans. Now it’s our turn to send our Nemesis to destroy the S.T.A.R.S!” His speech was like a powerful and belligerent war cry, followed by a thunderous applause that rumbled as loudly as his words in the lab and yet that sounded like a mere murmur when Nemesis growled in his pod like an enraged beast, showing his sharp long teeth. “STAAAAAARRRRS!”           God, what have you done?

                 His watch had just stricken 10pm when Chris put down his pen on the desk of his hotel room, reading the letter he had just finished to write. He had hoped he would have found a certain catharsis in writing down his feelings. But apparently there was no way of extricating the pain out of him just yet.

                                                     “Dear Jill,                

                 Perhaps it is a bit risky to send you this letter but I don’t know anyone else I could write this to. You’re the only one who’s not afraid to kick my ass and tell me the truth when needed.                     I screwed up, Jill. Completely fucked up. And I think I lost myself too. I lied to this girl, used her to my own benefits and did things that are so unlike me. Sure my plan worked in the end, just not the way I intended (not so surprising I know). And now that I’m that close to obtain what I wanted, I’m not so sure I want it anymore. At least not like that. And I feel awful.                        It’s tearing me apart because I know that finishing what I started could bring closure and peace to what happened to us but, at the same time, I would hate myself forever for it.                   If he were here, I know my father would tell me to do what’s right. But I don’t know what’s right anymore.                   What should I do, Jill? Tell me, please.

                 Love,

                 Chris”

Chris folded the letter and placed it in an envelope addressed to Jill and Jill only. If only he could place all his sorrow in it as well. He was sure his best friend would be able to find a way to get rid of it all instead of letting it grow the way he was letting it grow each time his eyes were laying upon the badge on the table before him, this ridiculous thing that had caused so much pain and an awful betrayal. All this for that?               “Fuck!!” He growled as he impulsively grabbed the object to throw it across the room.                   It slammed against the wall and fell onto the ground, closely followed by a glass of whisky - that exploded in a thousand of tiny pieces the second it touched the wall - and his wooden chair that smashed against the cast iron radiator, almost breaking the gas pipe in the process.                   Chris always had a temper. Even he couldn’t deny it. It actually had caused him some trouble in his short career especially in the Air Force. “Mind your temper, son.” He had been told him more than once. But that was a piece of advice Chris had never followed. And maybe that’s why his career in the military had been short, why he had resigned.                   Because yes, Chris knew how to resign. He knew how and when to quit. He knew nothing in the world was worth his integrity and honour. So why hadn’t he be able to stop this manipulation? Had he really sunk that low? Had he truly become what he had always hated?                

                 A loud knock at the door echoed in the room. Chris sighed and went to open it, expecting the manager of the hotel and his permanent sulk to be waiting on the doormat, ready to scold him for making so much noise. As he opened the door, he couldn’t be more wrong or more surprised. “Y/N?”           Dressed in your work clothes, you were standing before him trying to keep the composure you had somehow successfully managed to gain on your way here. “Now is a bad time?” You quickly glanced inside the room, spotting all the mess Chris had done. Guess that explained the noises you had heard from the corridor. “No. No. Absolutely not. Come in.” He stepped aside to let you in and you entered his room, rubbing you hands together in discomfort. A gesture Chris noticed immediately but couldn’t blame you for. The situation was indeed more than awkward. “If I knew you would come I would have …”         “Clean?” You asked, almost with a mocking smile. “Come on Chris, we both know it’s not your forte.” The man chuckled breathlessly unsure if the rebuke was meant to hurt or to be funny. Maybe both.         “I wasn’t expecting you. That’s it.” He rushed to quickly pick up his chair for you to sit on it but as soon as he placed it back next to his desk it crumbled onto the floor like a mere stack of wood. “Yep. That’s definitely broken. Why don’t you sit on the bed?”   “I’m not staying.” You announced and a single disappointed ‘oh’ escaped Chris’ lips. Clearly you weren’t here to fix things between the two of you. “I just came here to give you this.”

You opened your handbag and slowly handed him a notebook that Chris immediately recognized. It was your diary, the one he had read in secret, the one that contained all the information about your work and about what was going on in Umbrella’s French lab. And here you were, willingly giving it to him without hesitation or second thought. “Why?” Chris frowned, not understanding what was happening.       “Umbrella is planning something bad.” Your words made the young man shiver in fear. He could feel the familiar sensation crawling in his entire body, freezing it, paralysing it as nightmarish memories flashed back in his head, memories from the mansion, memories of his fallen colleagues and friends. Not again. “They’re planning on releasing their new creation in Raccoon City to hunt your friends from the S.T.A.R.S.” “Nemesis?” Chris asked to make sure that the new creation you were talking about was the one he had read about in your notebook. When you nodded, he took a deep breath to keep his heart from exploding in fear and rage in his chest.                   “And it won’t stop until they’re all dead. That’s what it has been programmed for.” You added and noticed Chris’s grip furiously tighten around your notebook. An understandable reaction you had been expecting since the moment you had decided to come here to tell him all about Umbrella’s latest plans.       “When are they going to do that?” He calmly asked through his gritted teeth that showed that the composure he was desperately trying to keep was on the verge of bursting.                   “I don’t know but very soon and we won’t be able to stop them. But there is something in this diary that might help you or your friends. I gathered every single piece of information about Nemesis in this notebook including his weaknesses. Plus it contains enough evidence to bring Umbrella down. I’m sure you’ll know what to do with it.”

Chris’ eyes widened, shocked yet amazed by your decision. He had never expected you to do this, not for him, not after everything that had happened between the two of you, not after what he had done. But despite the unconditional thankfulness he was feeling right now, he couldn’t help but worry about you as he dared imagine the consequences of your selfless act.  “But you …”     “I’m ready to take my responsibilities. I always was. Despite what you may think.” The rebuke hurt and Chris was sure that was its purpose. After all, the last time you two had talked he had said terrible things and had accused you of horrors that were not all necessarily true.     “ Y/N, I …” He sighed and you briefly looked down, refusing to see a pity you did not deserve veiling his beautiful brown eyes. Things were already hard enough.                                   “No, Chris. You were right.” You admitted. “I created a monster. And I can’t live with myself knowing that what I did might endanger people …or worse. I trust you and I know you’ll do the right thing.”                   You cupped his cheek, letting go to a surge of affection - probably the last – for this man who, despite his many wrongs and the heartbreak he had caused you, had enchanted your life in ways no other man would have.                 Chris welcomed your touch, accepting the tender caress as his heart broke. He hadn’t behaved like the most righteous man lately. He had betrayed you, lied to you, abused your trust and still you were here, telling him you were trusting him to do the right thing, giving him a sort of second chance he was certain he didn’t deserve. And yet, only one answer came to his mind.                   “I will.” He promised.

You had a brief sad smile before pressing your lips of his cheek, right in the corner of his pink lips. This was a goodbye kiss and it lingered on his face as long as it could just to be sure you would remember the taste and the woody perfume of his skin. “Take care of yourself, Chris.” You whispered, still close to him, your hand on his strong jaw.       “You too, Y/N.” Chris murmured back, squeezing your hand so tenderly it made you smile. And you managed to let go of him happy to leave knowing there was no resentment between the two of you, but also and mostly relieved. You had done the right thing and that felt so good, like a heavy pain lifted off your chest.     You turned around and headed towards the door, feeling Chris’ gaze on you. “Y/N?” He called out and you stopped on your tracks to look at him one last time over your shoulder. He seemed sad, almost guilty and it crushed you. You didn’t want him to be hurt. He was a good man and he had suffered enough. “My feelings for you were real.” He confessed.               Was it an attempt to make you stay? An attempt to make you run to his arms and kiss him with all the love you had for him? Or simply a desire to part on something real and true and forget all the lies and the treachery? You didn’t ask. You couldn’t ask just like you couldn’t rush into his arms. You knew you would never leave if you did. “I know.” You put your hand on the knob, ready to leave, mixed feelings of happiness and sadness tightening your stomach. It would soon disappear. At least that’s what you dared to hope.

But all hopes flew away when you suddenly felt the door tremble in its frame. The latch clinked in the deadbolt, again and again you let go of the knob to take a step back. You looked back at Chris who was staring at you in incomprehension but as soon as he saw the fear in your eyes he rushed towards his bed to take the gun he had hidden under the mattress. “Stand back.” He ordered as he pushed you behind him to shield you from whatever was coming.         The tremor became louder as if it was getting closer. And it was. It started echoing in the entire room, making the crystal pearls of the chandelier above your head jingle loudly and the walls shake all around you. Whatever was approaching was big and it was coming for him, or maybe for you both. That’s the only thing Chris was sure of and that was enough to make him aim his gun at the door and wait, ready to shoot. “That won’t work.” You declared, knowing full well what was in this hotel right now. “We need to leave or it will kill us.”       Chris glanced at you, keeping his guard up. Running away was not in his nature. “What is it?”                 You didn’t have time to reply as a growl shook the entire room. “STAAAAAARRRRS!” The door broke from its hinges as if it was made of cardboard and it flew over your head, deadly propelled by a monster Chris had never seen before. You both miraculously managed to dodge it and you screamed as you fell down onto the floor, Chris knelt in front of you, still trying to protect you as the door shattered the window behind you in a million of tiny pieces. “Son of a bitch! What the hell is that thing?” Chris harrumphed as he began shooting at the head of the creature. It looked like a tyrant but it was way bigger and definitely way more powerful since the magnum bullets barely made him flinch. “Nemesis!”            

The gigantic BOW entered the room slowly but with a heavy self-assured gait that made Chris’ eyes widened in terror. So that’s what was about to be sent in Raccoon City to hunt his friends. Holy shit! Nemesis approached you both, his veiled pale eye fixed upon Chris. “STARS!” He growled as he raised his muscular arm up in the air to punch you both with all the strength it had. The young man pushed you away to protect you, dropping his weapon in the process. You rolled onto the wooden floor and briefly got time to scream when the monster’s fist grazed Chris’ chest. “Chris!”     “Run! Get out!” Chris shouted at you as he quickly crawled to pick up his gun, still determined to defend himself against that beast.

You couldn’t run away, nor could you sit here and watch Chris get killed by the monster you had helped creating. You looked around you, panicked-stricken and terrified for the life of the man you loved, searching for something, anything that might help you neutralising Nemesis for a while and give you enough time to run away.         But the only idea that came to your head was dangerous, highly dangerous, suicidal even. But there was no time to think about something else.   And so you rushed towards Chris who was on the ground to pull him towards you before the Tyrant could crack his head open with a simple punch and helped him stand up. “I told you to run.” Chris screamed, terrified for you as much as you were terrified for him.         You glanced at Nemesis whose hand was stuck in the wooden floor “You’re not the only one who’s stubborn, Chris.” And you kissed him, quickly but hard and passionately, not caring for a second about the monster struggling to free himself right beside you.           Chris frowned, not understanding why you were doing this until he realised his magnum was not in is hand anymore. Instead he had a small notebook, your notebook and you had his weapon. His eyes widened in alarm as everything finally made sense to him “My feelings were real as well.” You confessed. “No!” He shouted, trying to take his gun back but you pushed him with all the strength you got through the broken window behind him, knowing full well that the fall would not kill him.           Chris tumbled over the railing, unable to resist the push and he fell into the void, screaming until his body dived into the trash-filled dumpster under the window. You smiled knowing he would be fine and turned around to see Nemesis going back up on its feet. “Alright. It’s you and I now, you fucker.”

You never held a gun in your life but you knew you didn’t need much training or precision to do what you intended to do. All you needed was to know how to pull a trigger and hope that your sacrifice would not be in vain. “Take that one with you to hell.” You curled your index and instinctively closed your eyes the second you heard the bullet escape the barrel with a loud bang to fly towards the creature.            

It’s true what they say about guns. They’re quick, awfully quick, so quick you realise you pulled the trigger only after the bullet lodge itself in your target. But it’s also true what they say about death. You see it coming. You see it coming accompanied by all the moments of your life that led you to your very ending. Death comes in slow motion, even when you shoot a bullet.                 You weren’t sure how you felt when you saw the small piece of lead hitting the radiator behind Nemesis. Relief? Satisfaction? Pride? Maybe all those emotions tinted with a bit of fear? A fear of what’s waiting for you on the other side (if there’s one)? A fear of what’s going to happen to Chris after you’re gone? But what you were sure of was that you had just done right by him.               And so you embraced your death, welcomed it with opened arms as the flames went burning your body, killing you instantly and swiftly. A beautiful painless death. A good death.

                 Chris woke up days later, alone in a room at the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital, with a nasty headache and his chest tightly wrapped in white bandages. Fuzzy, wondering where he was and what had happened to him, it took him a few seconds to remember it all. The hotel. The beast. How you both had been attacked. “Y/N” He whispered your name and his eyes widened in fear and worry. Where were you?           Without thinking, he quickly got up from his bed with a wince of pain and started removing all the electrodes stuck to his chest as well as the needle deeply inserted in his arm. The machines around him started beeping furiously. But he couldn’t care less. He had to find you. He had to see if you were okay. He barely had time to take an unsteady step - his legs too shaky and weak to support his weight - before a nurse, alarmed by the long beep of the electrocardiogram, brutally entered the room. “Oh mon dieu, mais que faites-vous debout?” She screamed in French as she urged Chris to lie back on his bed. “Y/N” He just said and the woman frowned. “I need to find her.”                 “Find who?” She asked, thinking Chris was maybe rambling because of all the painkillers in his system. “Y/N. The woman who was with me. In the hotel.”                 The nurse barely listened to him as she was doing all she could to make him sit down. Luckily for her, Chris was still too fragile to resist her. Dizzy, he softly yet reluctantly laid back on his bed and the woman gently grabbed his hands in an attempt to reassure him and calm him down. “Sir, you fell from the second floor. You suffered a serious head injury, not counting your broken ribs. You must rest.”     “Not before I find Y/N. She was with me, in the hotel.” He repeated, struggling to leave his bed again. His brain couldn’t focus on anything else but you and the nurse understood she would not be able to keep Chris in the room if he continued writhing on his bed like that. “I need back up in room 126. It’s urgent.” She said through the phone without taking her eyes off Chris.   “No, you don’t understand! She’s maybe in danger.” He growled as loud as he could as he seized the handset from the nurse’s hand to place it back on the base unit. “Alright. Alright. Why don’t you sit down and I’ll …”                   “Where is Y/N?” Chris insisted, desperately begging for an answer.   “I don’t know who you’re talking about. I’m afraid you’re the only patient who was brought here after the hotel explosion.” She confessed with a confusion that proved her honestly.

Chris felt a sudden weight crushing his shoulder and chest. “Explosion?” Chris repeated. “What explosion? What are you talking about?”                 “You don’t remember?” Chris stopped moving. His eyebrows furrowed, he tried to remember an explosion or anything that could have resembled one. But he had no memory of that. All he could remember was the monstrous creature trying to kill him. And so for a second he dared imagine many different scenarios that all came to the same conclusion. If there had been an explosion then Umbrella was behind it. “What explosion?” He asked again through his gritted teeth and the door suddenly slammed open.        

Chris turned around to see a couple of nurses and a white-haired old man entering the room. Judging by his suit and his undeniable charisma, he was certainly no regular police officer or some local inspector. “Mister Redfield? My name is Adam Benford. I work for the US government. I’ll ask you to calm down.” Chris glared at him. Like hell he would, old fool.   “Not until you tell me where is Y/N Y/LN.” That probably looked like blackmail but he didn’t care. He wanted answer and he had the feeling that man had them.  “Leave us. Mister Redfield and I need to discuss about a classified matter” Benford declared and the  nurses left the room.                

From his bed, Chris watched the old man standing in the middle of his room, still like marble. “Miss Y/LN is dead.” Chris didn't know if it was the way Benford had dropped that terrible news, so cold and insensitive, or the news itself that muted him and paralysed him to the spot. But Chris could barely believe what he had just heard. You were dead? No. No. You couldn’t. You … A couple of tears escaped his brown eyes and went rolling along his cheeks as he felt his heart shatter in his chest. “How?” He dared ask, fearing it was his fault. “Killed in the hotel explosion four days ago. Gas leak. The heater in your room appeared to have exploded. At least that is the version Umbrella paid the French police to reveal. But you and I both know something else happened. Right, Mr Redfield?”         Chris didn’t answer, still trying to process the fact he had lost you, that you had certainly died because of him. And that guilt was too heavy for him to bear. He already had to carry the loss of his fellow S.T.A.R.S. members over his young shoulders. He wasn’t sure he would be able to carry yours as well.                     “Umbrella sent Nemesis after me. They gave it the order to chase and kill all the S.T.A.R.S members who had survived the mansion incident. It attacked me and Y/N.” And it killed her. “We need to call the RPD and warn them” The fact that Benford didn’t look surprised by the news or even a tiny bit astonished made Chris realise he knew all too well about Nemesis and its task.               “ No need. Nemesis was sent after Miss Valentine and Mister Vickers 3 days ago in Raccoon City.” Chris’s heart skipped a beat and forgot how to breathe for a while.               “ Are they …?” He couldn’t finish the question and he wasn’t sure he was ready to hear the answer either. He had felt enough death and pain for today.   “ Miss Valentine managed to survive. But Mister Vickers didn’t make it.”           “ Oh no.” Chris looked down. He could feel guilt growing inside of him and slowly drowning him. “I should have warn then. I should have done something.” And with guilt came anger and rage.         “You were unconscious. Plus it would have been impossible for you to reach Raccoon City in time.” Chris frowned, unsure what Benford meant by that and when he saw the man sit by his side he understood something extremely bad had happened. “Raccoon City was destroyed a couple of days ago.” What? “Nuclear strike ordered by the President in order to sanitize the city after a T-virus escaped and contaminated most of the inhabitants.”                

Horror and anger struck Chris like thunderbolt and he clenched his fists, digging his short nails in his skin as strongly as he could. The rage he was feeling right now was nothing in comparison to the one he had felt before. He hated Umbrella, now more than ever. He hated that fucking company so much he could a powerful thirst for vendetta eating him up from within. They had taken so much from him. His friends. His city. The woman he loved. They needed to pay.     “I know it’s a lot to take in as I know Umbrella is responsible for everything that happened to you, to your colleagues and to Raccoon City. Trust me I’ll make sure they won’t get away with it.” Benford looked convinced and pretty confident but that wasn’t enough to persuade Chris who didn’t know if he could trust the American Government any longer. After all, they had financed Umbrella’s research for years. The T-virus was made to serve their military purposes. “I’m started an Anti-Umbrella unit within the US.STRAT.COM and I’ve been collecting information among the Raccoon City survivors, Miss Valentine included, since the viral outbreak. But I need to know, Mister Redfield. Do you have any sort of information that would help us bring Umbrella to justice?”

But what choice did he have right now if not trusting that man? Chris had no way to fight a giant like Umbrella. He couldn’t do anything against them, not on his own. He was not strong enough. And as he noticed the red notebook on the nightstand beside him, he took a decision. “ Y/N left this notebook to take Umbrella down. I’m willing to give its entire content if, and only if, this notebook remains in my possession.” “You don’t trust me with that notebook, do you?” Benford frowned, trying to hide how vexed he was. Jill Valentine and Leon Kennedy had shown themselves more cooperative.                   “No, I don’t. But it’s not because you work for the Government. It’s because it’s the only thing I have left from Y/N and I want to keep it.” The old man sighed knowing he would not get anything else from Chris. The things you do for love.                   “ Well. I guess we have a deal. Mister Redfield. Now tell me. What’s you’re story?”

Y/N Y/LN’s notebook was used as strong evidence in the Raccoon Trials of 1998 that recognized the Umbrella Corporation guilty of all charges led against them. Even today, the notebook is still considered as a major source of information in the fighting against Tyrant-type BOWs. A commemorative plaque in Y/N’s honour can be found in the BSAA Headquarters in America. Chris Redfield puts flowers on it each time he can and he still owns Y/N's diary in his office. When he is asked about Y/N, he says he’ll “always remember as a hero, as a woman I loved, as the girl under her extra-large umbrella”.

[journalxxx]

And They Rested on the Seventh Day

[I read the Good Omens book and watched the Amazon series, and enjoyed both a great deal: however, this story doesn't strictly follow the canon or characterizations of either. It's a bit of a mix of the things I liked the most from both versions (for clarity, this considers basically the plot and ending from the book + few selected elements from the tv series. Also Tennant. Definitely Tennant), topped with purely made-up bits of headcanon and character interpretation. The final result is that it’ll probably feel full of inconsistencies and OOC moments, but oh well. I had to take a few ideas off my head.]

To think that it had all started as a hobby of sorts. A wild bet on and against himself, just for the fun of it. 

Crowley hadn't thought much of the job he'd done in the Garden of Eden, at first. To be fair, he was still convinced that most of the responsibility for that big mishap fell on God Herself and Her inexplicable - pardon, ineffable - decision to dangle juicy bits of edible forbidden knowledge right in front of people who had literally been born yesterday. Honestly, what else could have happened? Crowley was sure one of the two humans would have given in to curiosity anyway, sooner or later: his intervention had simply sped up the process.

But Crowley’s superiors had been positively enthusiastic about it. God’s new and supposedly best creations, twisted and corrupted and exiled in less than a week since the beginning of the world? An astonishing success for the dark forces, they had said, very well done Crawly, you shall hereby be hailed as The Tempter (a title that would be handed out very freely in the centuries to come, in fact, since he had basically invented a whole new and very busy line of work for the entire Underworld). They had been so keen on putting his supposed talents of persuasion to good use that they had assigned him on permanent Earth surveillance duty, keeping an eye on things and easing the slippery slope of other innocent souls to the abyss. A simple enough job, he thought, and he wasn’t at all displeased with the idea of spending most of his time away from Hell. The place was, well, hellish.

He had been quite surprised to meet the Guardian of the Eastern Gate there as well, apparently tending to the exact opposite task as Crowley’s. What were the odds, uh? But in Aziraphale’s case, Crowley couldn’t help but feel that the new office was meant more as a demotion rather than as a reward. The angel didn’t seem exactly… suited to field work, so to speak. He was definitely the kind of guy who’d deal better with paperwork or with performing celestial harmonies or with whatever those guys up there got up to, these days - rather than with acting as an incognito emissary of the Light. He was simply too soft-hearted. It clearly pained him to witness the daily struggles of mankind without being able to relieve them, if not in a very roundabout and indirect way. He would have gladly handed out miracles and blessings as promptly as he had relinquished his flaming sword, Crowley thought, if he hadn’t directly been ordered to stick to spreading ‘positive influence’. 

He was a queer one, Aziraphale, but overall rather amusing to have around. And after the first mostly accidental meetings, Crowley had started to notice several very, very interesting things about him. 

First of all, the angel was a sinner. And a rather nonchalant one too.

The first sin Crowley noticed was pride. Now, pride was objectively quite intrinsic to all angelic beings, to some extent, with their perpetual holier-than-thou attitude and their unbending illusion of absolute righteousness. Aziraphale wasn’t an exception. He could have very well avoided Crowley, if he really thought so lowly of him and his shady dealings, but he didn’t. He met him, he primly and oh so very graciously tolerated his company, he pointedly corrected his faulty views on creation and the universe with the self-satisfied attitude of a conceited schoolmaster. It made Crowley’s skin, well, crawl. And he had this ridiculous habit of pointing out, at randomly fitting points during any discussion, that he, Aziraphale, was an angel and he, Crowley, was a demon, and therefore blah blah. He did that really often, inexplicably so. It wasn’t like either of them was going to forget what they were, after all. And it wasn’t like he needed to repeat that at frequent intervals to make sure that some undefined and distracted external audience was aware of their standing in the universe either. It was just plainly dumb and irritating. Crowley had taken to address him as ‘angel’ more often than with his proper name, out of sheer sarcasm. Sadly Aziraphale hadn’t taken particular notice.

Another very glaring sin Aziraphale keenly committed was gluttony. Oh, what a glutton he was. The first time Crowley had met him ‘socially’, he had been astounded to notice that Aziraphale actually ate. If his body was anything like Crowley’s, and Crowley was sure it was, it was conveniently free from most of the intentional design flaws God had installed on humans after Adam and Eve’s escape, such as illness, hunger and tiredness. Neither Aziraphale nor Crowley needed any sustenance or sleep (although Crowley had quickly taken a liking to the latter activity - but he was a demon, Aziraphale would have pointed out with his most slappable face, so he was allowed as many indulgences as he wanted). Even the most gluttonous human had some sort of excuse, what with needing to eat to survive and, while one was at it, he may as well do it decently, to build the temple of his body in the best possible way and so on and so forth. It was a very flimsy and poor excuse, considering the sort of folks who usually resorted to it, but humans clung to such moralistic drivel like limpets. Aziraphale didn’t even have that tiny pretext on his side. He ate (and drank) without any need to, and he did it often and with much gusto, out of sheer pleasure. If that wasn’t the epitome of gluttony, Crowley was an anteater.

And, after a few centuries, a hint of greed began to emerge too. It was a very specific sort, aimed at very specific material possessions, namely those that had to do with writing. Aziraphale had been inordinately proud when humans had begun to carve their funny little thoughts and grocery lists on very impractical clay tablets, he had called it a revolutionary intuition, surely sparked by divine goodwill. Crowley’s reaction had been more along the lines of a whole-body shrug. Aziraphale was fond of reading and, when it became possible, he even started collecting reading material. Papyrus, parchments, scrolls, anything he could find. When books started to become a thing, the angel ogled them like misguided shepherds ogled golden calves. He acquired them very sparingly and with a trace of guilt at first, when books were rare and their production was lengthy and expensive and holding onto some tomes for his own personal enjoyment effectively diminished the amount of knowledge available to the world at large. But after the press was invented, oooh boy. Yes, the excessive and self-serving accumulation of literary material goods was definitely among Aziraphale’s faults.

But that was only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

In fact, for all his preaching and sternly-worded proclamations of faith, Aziraphale had perplexities. That much was glaringly obvious. Ineffability perplexed him, even though he unerringly presented it as the ultimate argument against Crowley’s own perplexities, whenever they ventured to discuss celestial politics. It had been perplexing him, at least to a certain extent, since the apple incident, Crowley was sure of that. And that was odd in itself. Crowley had believed that, after the Rebellion, Heaven had been purged of any angelic creature who wasn’t a hundred percent committed and trusting in God’s cause, but Aziraphale seemed troubled to a visible degree, at times. Crowley had known Aziraphale only very superficially before falling, and he couldn’t quite say if his doubts were a recent development or not.

So, a peculiar idea started to slither in the corners of Crowley’s oft bored mind.

What if, he thought, what if I could make this angel fall?

The premises for the evil deed were all there. Aziraphale already committed almost half of the deadly sins of his own accord, whether he knew it or not. And he had reservations, however intimate and rationalized, about God’s plan. That was all it had taken for Crowley himself to fall, after all. Just a couple of reservations and hanging around the wrong people. Crowley could provide both of those factors very easily.

It was, admittedly, mere speculation. Crowley wasn’t even sure it was possible for angels to fall after the Rebellion - something had seriously shifted in the balance of the universe back then, everyone had noticed. But the concept was absurdly inviting. Who else, after all, aside from the Morning Star Himself, could boast coaxing angels into corruption? It would be a stunning accomplishment in any demon’s curriculum, wouldn’t it? Forget about apples and tempting feeble human minds, that would be real bragging material. The more he thought about it, the stronger the itch got. In addition, despite his earlier doubts, Crowley had discovered himself quite naturally adept to that whole temptation business. He had thought his success with Eve a bit of a fluke, born of very favorable circumstances: deep down she already wanted that fruit, and so did her companion. They were already leaning towards disobedience, and all Crowley himself had to do was just to give the both of them a little nudge in that direction.

But then, he had found out that that principle was valid for all humans. Every human, literally every one of them, was inevitably attracted to Evil, at least a little bit. In some cases he had to resort to some delicate manoeuvres and subtle approaches to nurture that twisted tendency, in others he simply had to knock on an open door. A very easy and straightforward job, indeed.

But would it be that easy with a full-fledged angel? Presumably not. How should he go about it, then? He supposed that approaching Aziraphale with a rapid fire of existential questioning would be slightly too on the nose. Besides, ineffability. How did you even question that? It’s a brick wall of suspended disbelief and logic denial. No, theology speculations weren’t the right answer, only the most mind-numbingly boring one.

Crowley decided to roll up his sleeves and start with the basics. Adding the remaining deadly sins on Aziraphale’s list of misconducts would be a solid start, he deliberated. Whittling away at a soul’s integrity bit by bit was all the rage back then, in terms of temptation tactics. He’d slowly erode the angel’s rectitude as if he was your average human, and then he’d see where he could go from there. And he would take it nice and easy, spreading his influence over centuries, millennia if necessary. He wouldn’t risk ruining his chances by revealing his hand too soon. He had picked the most promising one among the four remaining sins, and he had started plotting.

He could still remember the indescribable sensation he had felt when he had succeeded, sometime around 1000 AD. It had indeed taken centuries of discreet suggestions and proposals, refuted firmly and scornfully at first, but with less and less passion over time, until Aziraphale had finally given in to the Arrangement, with nothing more than a curt and tense nod. Crowley had offered his assistance first, obviously. He was already about to head to Byzantium to tend to his own business, so he thought he may as well take care of Aziraphale’s too. Just an innocent favour, free of charge. Obviously, if for fairness’ sake the angel felt like returning said favour in the future, Crowley’d be obliged, but really, no pressure whatsoever. 

Unexpectedly, unlike all the previous times, the angel had accepted. It felt like a minor victory in itself, even though it was only the first step. Naturally Aziraphale followed him, although not quite as discreetly as he thought. And he followed Crowley the next time as well, and the third- the third he didn’t. 

Now, that felt like a triumph. Crowley’s skin had begun to tingle in sheer excitement when he had ascertained that the third time he had offered his assistance to Aziraphale, the angel had simply trusted him to carry out the task as requested. Not that Crowley wanted or could avoid doing what he’d been asked - their respective head offices may be careless about smaller details, but they were fond of keeping scores. If the holy work hadn’t been performed, Heaven would have noticed, therefore Aziraphale would have been reprimanded, and Crowley would have lost that hard-earned trust. What was notable, however, was that it had taken only two trips for the angel to trust completely a demon to perform honest, divine work. It was foolish of Aziraphale not to check that he would, it was lazy of him not to perform the job himself, as he’d been ordered, as he’d undoubtedly report he had. It was deception to his superiors, it was negligence, but more importantly, it was sloth.

It was a heady rush of adrenaline after a long period of forced calm, the kind of exhilaration a skilled hunter feels after waiting for hours - centuries, in that case - for the prey to fall into an aptly placed trap. It was indeed possible to tempt an angel, and he, Crowley the Tempter, the Snake of Eden, had managed to do it. It was riveting. That sensation of well-earned success alone would have been enough to brighten his days and put a spring in his step for the next century, but the best was yet to come, and it was something Crowley wasn’t even planning of.

He had been joking when he had suggested that Aziraphale should be the one to carry out the next bunch of long-distance duties for the both of them. He wasn’t expecting him to accept by a long shot, definitely not so soon at least - but he did. Sheepishly and uncomfortably, Aziraphale had listened to Crowley’s instructions and headed off with a half-muttered promise to ‘see what he could do’. That was a surprise, although Crowley didn’t believe for one second that he would see the job done. An angel (and not just any angel, Aziraphale), doing Satan’s work? What a joke. He’d chicken out of it before dawn, for sure, and either later inform Crowley that he had met with obstacles, or pretend to have forgotten about the whole conversation. And indeed, after seeing neither hide nor hair of the angel for the next month, Crowley assumed Aziraphale had just done that. The demon had then made the hundred-kilometre trip to take care of the business personally, only to find the couple of married lovers (married to other people, that is) already in the throes of the deep reciprocal passion that had been haunting them for the past three years, their families in turmoil and their small town in the middle of nowhere now enjoying the best bout of spicy gossip since that peculiar incident with the shepherd and his sheep forty years earlier.

Crowley was absolutely flabbergasted. That was much, much better than he’d even dared to expect. He felt like he’d basically already done it. It was going to work. If it had taken so little effort to convince an angel to tempt humans instead of blessing them, it was only a matter of time before Aziraphale eventually succumbed completely to Crowley’s scheme. Only a matter of time! He’d keep working on it, slowly and patiently, in a world that would soon start moving forward at an increasing and unimaginable pace, treating Aziraphale like his personal pet project, tackling one sin at a time. What was left? Lust, envy, wrath - oof, wrath was going to be a tough one, wasn’t it? The strongest negative emotion he’d ever seen Aziraphale display was ‘mildly peeved’ - but it would definitely, definitely work. He wouldn’t rush it, he’d wait for the perfect occasion to land in his lap and he’d seize it, to drag the angel to ruin in careful, calculated steps.

That night Crowley had gotten fantastically, gloriously, immeasurably drunk, and had dragged literally the entire village into his personal celebration, thanks to the inexplicable appearance of a good dozen abandoned carts on the main road, filled with jugs of excellent wine from the local vineyards. The huge, impromptu party that followed would have put Bacchus himself to shame, and it provided the village spinsters with enough gossip about the many depraved deeds that had been consumed on that night for the next 378 years, give or take.

That was roughly a thousand years ago.

Funny, Crowley thought as he was sprawled on an unimportant bench in an unimportant road of Lower Tadfield, Oxfordshire, feeling and looking like a puppet with cut strings. Funny, Crowley thought as he was looking up into the cloudless and starry sky of a world that hadn’t ended, how much things can change in just a thousand years.

Aziraphale stood up when two round headlights appeared at the end of the road, and glanced curiously at Crowley when he didn’t do the same. Slowly, with immense effort and groaning like a metal crane bent by a gigantic hand, Crowley gathered his strewn limbs and rearranged them vertically as well. The angel and the demon climbed on a bus that wasn’t going to Oxford, walked past an unresponsive conductor that wasn’t asking for tickets, and spent most of the trip sharing a bottle of wine whose quality vastly outmatched its price tag and whose capacity had long since exceeded the promised 750 millilitres.

The repetitive scenery of the the dark English countryside let Crowley’s mind wander back into the past. It occurred to him that it had been roughly 600 years since the last time Aziraphale had set foot into his house. You could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times the angel had ever accepted to visit his ‘den of iniquity’ (Aziraphale’s words, c. 310 AD), and always very briefly. They had always preferred meeting in public venues anyway, until Crowley had decided that Aziraphale’s bookshop definitely counted as one and had taken the habit of dropping by for the occasional drink. 

The invitation had slipped out of Crowley’s mouth easily, unthinkingly, while they were waiting for the bus. And, honestly, how could he not offer hospitality in such circumstances? All of the angel’s earthly possessions, including his very house, had gone up in flames. What was Crowley supposed to do, let him go to a random public bathroom, lock himself into a cubicle and miracle the inside of it into Croesus’ mansion? Seriously. Just because he was a demon, it didn’t mean he was utterly uncivil. Still, Aziraphale had taken up on Crowley’s suggestion with less hesitation that he’d expected. At that point, all Crowley could do was hoping that Hell hadn’t sent reinforcements after Hastur and Ligur’s failed attempt at ‘collecting’ him, and an apartment to invite Aziraphale into still existed in the first place... Oh, well. Worst case scenario, they’d hijack two cubicles.

“How long do you think we have,” Aziraphale said quietly, interrupting the disorganized flow of Crowley’s thoughts, “before they’ll decide to come after us?”

“Heaven and Hell, you mean?” Crowley answered slowly, syllables sticking to his tongue. “I don’t know, a while. I bet they have some serious internal mess to deal with first. Disappointed warmongers and whatnot. Bigger priorities than us.”

“But they will sort that out eventually.” Aziraphale stretched his arm towards Crowley, hand open in a muted request for the bottle. “And then what? I doubt they’ll leave any rogue agents be.”

“....Eh. They might, you know? The kid- whoops.” Crowley let go of the bottle when he felt Aziraphale’s fingers brush his own, but the glass slipped from both their grasps. Aziraphale blinked, and the bottle froze in midair a few centimetres above the floor. He calmly bent down to fetch it as Crowley continued. “The kid told us not to worry.”

“But do you think he has the power to grant us protection from both Reigns?”

Crowley shrugged. “He’s the boss’ son. And he just stopped the bloody apocalypse, if you haven’t noticed. He has power, all right. That’s good enough insurance for me.”

Aziraphale hummed pensively, his gaze lost out of the window. Crowley watched him take a measured sip, and then clean distractly the neck of the bottle with a handkerchief. His movements were quiet, harmonious, steady. Everything about Aziraphale was, and always had been. Crowley’s whole, brilliant temptation plan was centered on the expectation that sins would change his angelic nature, that they would change him. Instead, what had happened was the exact opposite. As the decades and centuries went by, as their meetings grew less and less ‘business’ oriented and turned into genuine divertissement, Aziraphale wasn’t changed by the sins: the sins were changed by him. A tasty nibble of food wasn’t a temptation any more, but a moment of genuine appreciation for the little, blessed pleasures God still allowed mortals to experience. His elegantly-worded notions about the order of the universe ceased to be a prideful display of superiority, and instead became an engaging debate capable of building dialogue between spiritual opposites. His love for books wasn’t a selfish desire of accumulation for accumulation’s sake, but an intellectual connection to the history and minds of the humans he was meant to protect, from all times and cultures. His acceptance to share duties with a demon wasn’t sheer laziness, but a very tangible olive branch offered to a former sworn enemy. Deeds that would have tarnished any human soul, made it revolting and beyond repair, hadn’t even dented the core of Aziraphale’s goodness. If anything, they had enriched it: like the light patina of a vintage Bentley, those sins adorned Aziraphale’s very soul like unique and distinguishing traits, all the more intriguing to a discerning eye.

And the most baffling thing was that Crowley hadn’t even noticed. He hadn’t noticed that his plan, ostensibly always in motion and always waiting, waiting, waiting for the next occasion to move further, was gradually being shoved into the most forgetful corners of his mind. He hadn’t noticed he’d stopped plotting against his enemy, and had instead started just coexisting with him. It had taken him so goddamn long to notice he’d stopped considering Aziraphale as an inconvenient obstacle to be removed from the world Crowley was meant to submit, but that the angel had rather become one of its most interesting and worthwhile features.

It had taken him until the end of the world to realize that.

As it turned out, Crowley’s flat hadn’t been obliterated by the forces of Hell. Yet.

“Make yourself at home.” Crowley said as he jogged from room to room to make sure there were no former colleagues of his lying in wait anywhere.

“This is where you live?” Aziraphale asked, peeking curiously from the entryway. Crowley interrupted his inspection just to make a face.

“Oh no, I’m just appropriating the humble abode of a millionaire manager perished in the latest fish tornado. He won’t need it anymore, will he?” Aziraphale gave him a dubious glance. Crowley rolled his eyes. “Yes, this is where I live. What kind of question is that, why wouldn’t it be?”

“Oh, you know, just wondering.” Aziraphale answered, visibly relieved. “I wasn’t really expecting your home to look like this.”

“And why not?”

“Well, it’s… rather neat and minimalistic.” Aziraphale hesitated. “It almost reminds me of the Upper Offices. Although it is quite darker, I suppose.”

Crowley stared at Aziraphale pointedly. Deafening silence was the only appropriate reply to such a statement, so he let it stretch leisurely until Aziraphale couldn’t help but look away.

“Are you going to come in anytime soon or…?” Crowley eventually said, gesturing around vaguely.

“Yes. Thank you.” The angel finally unstuck from the threshold and followed Crowley into the study. “I really appreciate your hospitality, by the way. I’ll be out of your hair by tomorrow, I’m sure it won’t be hard to find a nice spot for me to move in.”

“Oh, no rush. I barely use this place.” Crowley waved at him dismissively, his attention suddenly caught by the ansaphone. It wasn’t blinking exactly as he had left it. It definitely should be blinking exactly as he had left it. “Uh, right, the bedroom’s over there. If you don’t feel like sleeping, there’s the…” There was the tv, which Aziraphale hardly ever watched. There was the computer, which surely he didn’t even know how to plug in. There was the hi-fi, boasting an impressive collection of contemporary artists 95% of which the angel probably had never heard of. It suddenly occurred to Crowley that Aziraphale wasn’t the easiest guest to entertain.

“You don’t happen to have any books lying around, I suppose.”

Crowley shrugged. “‘Fraid not. But there’s some food in the fridge, if you want.” He offered lamely.

“Oh. Thank you, but I think I’ll be catching some sleep tonight as well.” Aziraphale smiled sheepishly. “I haven’t had a day as intense as this one in a long while. It takes a toll on you even when you’re indefatigable.”

“You’re telling me.” Crowley mumbled, watching Aziraphale head off into the corridor. He waited until his guest was reasonably far from the study before checking the new recorded message. He regretted it very quickly.

“What’s that?” Aziraphale inquired loudly, when the unmistakable noise of demonic torment and horrified screams erupted from the speakers. Crowley hurried to silence it with some chaotic button-mashing and removed the cassette from the machine. A single, fat worm fell from the tape. 

“Ugh.” Crowley grimaced, shoving the whole device into the trash can. All right, his mistake. He should have dealt with Hastur when he had the chance. But then again, what was one more demon free out there wanting him dead when he had already earned the eternal grudge of both Heaven and Hell? “Nothing. Nothing to be worried about.”

“That definitely sounded like something to be worried about.” Aziraphale insisted, rather alarmed. 

“Nah, just prank calls. I really need to find out who invented them and offer them a drink, now that’s some first-calls deviousness-” Crowley hurried to the bedroom before Aziraphale could decide to investigate the matter personally, and stopped abruptly when he saw the angel sitting innocently on his bed. “Uh. That’s my bed.” He felt it was important to state that fact aloud.

“Yes, I gathered. Excellent mattress, I must say.” Aziraphale replied genially, until Crowley’s silence prompted him to stand up hastily. “Oh, sorry, you pointed me to the bedroom and I thought you meant I could…?”

“No! I meant that you could make yourself a bed and get settled!”

“Oh! I’m terribly sorry, I just thought…” Aziraphale paused, looking at the object of the argument confusedly. “It’s a very large bed though. It looks like four people could sleep comfortably on it, so I thought-”

“I roll around a lot when I sleep, all right?” Crowley retorted with anger, with tangible and very obvious anger, and with absolutely no embarrassment whatsoever. “Look, just- miracle yourself some furniture, here or wherever you want, or sleep on the sofa, or anywhere that isn’t my bed.”

“All right, all right!” Aziraphale frowned and raised his hands defensively. “I’ll take the sofa then.”

Crowley collapsed face-first on his reconquered berth as soon as Aziraphale left the room, his sunglasses conveniently teleporting to the bedside table before they could bore into his skull. He felt positively destroyed. He’d give anything for another century-long nap, he hadn’t had one of those in a while. But it would be rather imprudent in the current circumstances. He’d have to make do with a dozen hours. He closed his eyes and exhaled deeply, welcoming that exquisitely human sense of physical relaxation that came with dozing off. He let the beginnings of sleep dull his senses and his mind, sweetly and mercifully-

“My, such luxuriant foliage…” 

Crowley’s eyes snapped open. “NO!” He bellowed, hurling himself off the bed and into the corridor with barely enough coordination not to trip on his own feet. “Stop it! Shut up!”

“What-” Aziraphale startled as Crowley suddenly appeared before him, arms spread in a clear effort to physically separate him from the potted greenery. “W-What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Leave the plants alone. Don’t look at them. And above all don’t talk to them.” Crowley ordered as he grasped the angel’s shoulders and steered him bodily out of the room.

“But why? I was just admiring the-”

“There’s nothing to admire here. Everyone’s just doing what they’re supposed to do.”

“But-”

“My house, my rules. The plants are off-limits.” Crowley snapped his fingers and two robust metallic doors materialized out of thin air to seal the area from the rest of the house. Crowley shoved Aziraphale past them, while he lingered on the threshold just long enough to glare at every single plant in the room.

“Don’t forget whose opinion really matters here, guys.” He hissed, his teeth bared. His warning was met with a collective, deferential shudder. 

“...Crowley, are you all right?” Aziraphale asked, eyeing him worriedly. Crowley looked at him like a naked Bedouin sitting on a glacier in the Arctic might look at someone asking him if he’s cold. The doors locked with an audible clang.

“...Yeah, I’m just peachy.” He eventually muttered, rubbing his eyes and heading back to the bedroom. He lay down again and closed his eyes, enjoying a grand total of ten second of peace before Aziraphale’s footsteps reached the room. Crowley sighed. “...What?”

“Actually, I think I would like to sleep here, if it’s all right with you.”

“Do whatever you want.”

“Are you sure you don’t mind-”

“What do you think ‘do whatever you want’ means, Aziraphale?”

“I’m guessing it means that I have free reign over any part of your house that doesn’t include your bed or your plants.” 

Aziraphale’s miffed tone got the tiniest smile out of him. “Yep, you got it. See? Wasn’t difficult.”

Crowley felt reality shift around him. Curiosity got the better of him, and he peeked to the side. The bedroom had conveniently enlarged just enough so that Aziraphale’s newly created bed could fit. It was a small, single one, all wood and fin de siecle linens and puffy pillows and creamy tones. It clashed with the existing decor something terrible, but Crowley barely took notice. He was more concerned with its owner, sitting somewhat rigidly on it and glancing around the room nervously. Suddenly Crowley understood why he’d chosen to sleep there.

“Relax, angel. No one will be coming after us.” Crowley couldn’t help but offer, lowly. “Not tonight, at least.”

Their eyes met. After a beat, Aziraphale nodded. “Yes. You are probably right.”

Aziraphale was still sitting up when Crowley closed his eyes. He hoped that the other could catch some rest, but he wouldn’t mind too much if he didn’t. Even a demon could use a guardian angel to watch over his sleep, after all.

Aziraphale did sleep that night, for a good two hours and a half. It may not sound like a lot, but considering that he hadn’t rested since that quick twenty-minute nap in 1732, it felt immensely refreshing anyway. Upon rising, he had to admit that creating his own bed had proven to be a wise choice: in his sleep, Crowley had somehow managed to scatter his considerably long limbs all over the mattress, effectively covering a flat surface that must be at least three times as large as that of his own body. Admittedly he looked quite endearing, arms and legs making a decent impression of a windrose and snoring away with his mouth open.

Aziraphale spent the rest of the night keeping himself quietly busy. He checked all the news from the radio and the tv, from which he gathered that Adam was mending reality with impressive speed and ease, considering how suddenly his powers had bloomed. It was truly a blessing that the boy was far more mature than anyone had credited him for. To think that Aziraphale himself had seriously entertained the notion of eliminating him… No, that guilt wasn’t going to leave him anytime soon.

The angel then proceeded to tidy up what little there was to tidy up in Crowley’s apartment. Some spilt water here and there, and a ragged, dark set of clothes oddly abandoned on the threshold of the study. They didn’t look like the type of get-up Crowley would choose for himself, and it certainly wasn’t one Aziraphale had ever seen him wear, but then again the demon had a thing for experimenting with mortal fashion. Aziraphale also repeatedly wrestled with the impulse to take another look at Crowley’s plants, entirely because of his exceedingly suspicious behavior. He didn’t do it, though. That would have been extremely impolite, almost traitorous. Utterly unworthy of his status. Although- no. No, he wouldn’t.

He even managed to find a few books, tucked away under the sofa or on top of unreachable shelves. They were atlases, maps, photography magazines, all focussed on naturalistic topics: pictures of panoramas from all over the world, animals, plants, even remote stars and galaxies. Aziraphale wasn’t an especially avid consumer of such publications: he vastly preferred both the written word and man-made illustrations, which did a much better job of conveying the divine spark of creativity God had blessed humanity with. However, as he was leafing through those pages and seeing ruins of cities he had inhabited, cute yet clumsy species he had discreetly saved from extinction, masses of gas and dust he had shaped into celestial bodies, he couldn’t help but slip into a lengthy bout of nostalgia for the halcyon days of creation. He wouldn’t be surprised if Crowley kept those books around for the same reason.

When he heard some muffled noises coming from the bedroom, Aziraphale decided to make breakfast. His noble endeavor, however, was thwarted by the complete lack of any sort of raw or packed ingredient in any cupboard of the house; the fridge, instead, offered a vast selection of gourmet brioches, fruit juices, bacon and eggs, pancakes and all sorts of scrumptious dishes that looked as if they had been cooked mere minutes earlier. Well, it would be a waste not to partake, he deliberated. He’d just finished setting the table when Crowley finally joined him with a half-yawned “‘Morning.”

It was a most refreshing and welcome change of pace, being able to chat of everything and nothing over a hearty meal again, instead of covertly panicking over the very real possibility of Doomsday disrupting the next weekend, as well as all the others that would never follow. The last week had been exhausting for the both of them - especially for Crowley. For all his trademark devil-may-care attitude, it was really quite easy to notice when the demon was genuinely distressed: from his eyes, thin slits of darkness in a pool of gold that Aziraphale could always see through the glasses and that darted left and right more quickly than usual, to his gestures, that lost their swaying languor in favor of nervous, reptilian jerks, to the sudden explosions of anger and aggression that were just as dangerous as the roar of a kitten. All of that was gone now. His cutting temper was still dulled by the lingering drowsiness, and soft, unguarded smiles curved his lips in response to Aziraphale’s casual chatter. The ruffled hair, the creased clothes and the lazy nibbles at his brioche spoke of the unhurried comfort that came after overcoming a trying ordeal, and they filled the angel’s heart with genuine tenderness. There were, truly, beauty and goodness in all the things and entities that existed, even in those who supposedly tried their hardest to antagonize them.

“Oh, you may want to take those to the cleaners.” Aziraphale pointed at the folded rags he’d put on the sofa, once he was finished with his breakfast. “What ever did you do to those poor clothes to ruin them like that?”

“Ugh, throw them away.” Crowley replied with a disgusted grunt. “That’s Ligur.”

“I see.” Aziraphale said, having never heard of the brand. He agreed that the quality of the tailoring was rather shabby, so he did as he was told. “Well, I was thinking of dropping by the bookshop this morning - or what’s left of it, anyway. Who knows, there may be some intact books among the rubble…”

“Mmmh. I guess there’s no harm in checking.” Crowley didn’t look terribly convinced. “Mind if I come along?”

“Oh, not at all.” Aziraphale replied, pleasantly surprised. “But don’t you have more urgent things to do, instead of helping me carry around charred tomes?”

“Right now, not at all. I’m pretty sure I’ve been fired, so I happen to have a lot of free time on my hands.” Crowley snapped his fingers, and in a blink he was as elegant and well-groomed as ever. 

“You aren’t going to keep performing your duties then? No more tempting innocent souls or spreading negative influence?” Aziraphale inquired as they stepped into the lift.

“Are you? Even if your boss doesn’t care?”

“Why, of course. Being a harbinger of the light is the very reason of my existence! It’s more than a job, it’s my very nature!”

“Aren’t you a model employee?” Crowley deadpanned. “Well, first and foremost, I think I’ve earned myself a vacation. Now, that isn’t to say that I’m going to pass up on any opportunities to have some fun if the occasion arises...”

“Of course you aren’t.” Aziraphale smiled, stepping out of the building. “Shall we take a taxi or- Crowley?” Crowley had abruptly stopped in his tracks, staring at something in the parking area- 

“Oh!” Aziraphale eloquently commented.

Crowley jogged to what was, without a doubt, his car. Not the scorched ball of molten metal and rubber he’d been forced to abandon at Tadfield Airbase, but his cherished Bentley in all its former glory and vintage elegance. The demon stared at it in evident disbelief, his brows so high that they almost disappeared into his hairline, his mouth shaped into a perfectly round O. He admired it, ran his palm along the chassis, hopped all around to inspect it from every possible angle - including under the bumper and over the roof.

“Did you do this?” He eventually managed, his gaze bouncing back and forth between the car and the angel.

“No, it wasn’t me. But I’ve heard that yesterday’s disasters are being reverted. Maybe this is part of it.” Aziraphale suggested as Crowley opened the door and basically dove head-first into the car.

“It’s exactly as it used to be! Custom leather seats and all! Even my CDs-” Crowley took one from the dashboard, one whose cover was a wordless black void with a glass prism refracting white light into a rainbow. He inserted it into the radio and a cheery band started to sing very enthusiastically about riding a bicycle. Crowley’s exhilarated mood seemed to dampen ever so slightly. “...Yep. Just as they used to be.”

“It looks like Adam knows what he’s doing.” Aziraphale smiled, knowing how much that little miracle meant for his friend. Then, a thought struck him. “Maybe…”

“...Maybe.” Crowley agreed, understanding him at a glance. “Hop in. Let’s go and see.”

Aziraphale’s empathetic joy waned very quickly when it was obvious that Crowley’s driving style wasn’t at all affected by the recent demise of his old vehicle.

“Out of curiosity, how did the fire start?” The angel asked, trying to think of anything but the absurd number on the speed gauge.

“I was about to ask you the same thing. Serves you right for quitting on me as you did though. Seriously, did you really have to pick the busiest day in the last six thousand years to leave this plane of existence? Where did you even go?”

“To Heaven, of course. And I didn’t exactly choose to leave, if you must know. I was… summoned.”

“Oh, you don’t say?” Crowley sneered. “Well, guess what? My lot summoned me too, but I ignored them because I had more important stuff to do, namely saving the bloody universe-”

“Also because they would have welcomed you less than enthusiastically, I imagine-”

“On my own, because someone ditched me without one word of warning-”

“That’s not what happened at all! It was… an unfortunate accident.” Aziraphale burst out, halfway between affronted and embarrassed. 

“What kind of accident?” Crowley frowned inquisitively when Aziraphale didn’t reply. “Oi! What kind of accident?”

“...Promise me you won’t laugh.” Aziraphale begged. Crowley merely raised an eyebrow in response. The angel sighed. “Well, the thing is… I was in my bookshop, and I opened a channel to Heaven, to see if I could… talk them out of the whole universal annihilation thing-”

“Talking people out of war. Yeah, solid plan. When has it ever not worked in the history of wars?”

“It made sense to try, at least. Anyway, Shadwell walked in-”

“What the heaven was Shadwell doing in your bookshop?”

“I don’t know- could you please stop interrupting me? As I was saying, Shadwell saw the ritual and… I fear he mistook me for one of your lot. He got rather worked up and…”

“He killed you?” Crowley guessed, genuinely impressed.

“Oh no, no! He just… started pacing here and there, muttering strange things, and… well, he got a tad too close to the summoning circle - the passage was still open, you see, and…”

“And?”

“I sort of… stepped on it. While I was trying to keep him away.” Aziraphale paused. “By accident.”

Crowley didn’t reply. He looked at Aziraphale, then back at the road, then at the angel again. His mouth twitched.

“Don’t.” Aziraphale warned him. Crowley’s face had already become a quivering mess of aborted expressions that devolved very quickly into hysterical half-snorts.

“Oh sure, go ahead and- don’t take your hands off the wheel!” Aziraphale squealed when the demon did exactly that, holding his sides and throwing back his head as he burst into a boisterous laugh. Luckily, the car seemed to be endowed with all the common sense Crowley had never had and it kept avoiding pedestrians autonomously.

“That’s so stupid.” Crowley gasped, making a show of wiping away a non-existent tear. “That’s so bloody stupid. How can anyone possibly be so stupid?”

“Oh, I don’t know. In the same way one can misplace an Antichrist for eleven years, I suppose.” Aziraphale’s jab sadly didn’t manage to penetrate the waves of hilarity Crowley was exuding. “Judging by Shadwell’s behavior, he must have presumed my disappearance was due to his own… peculiar powers.”

“Oh, is that what he’s been doing with his finger all day yesterday?”

“Well, yes. What did you think he was doing?”

“I don’t know! I thought you had tried to possess him and fried a bunch of his neurons… And it’s not like he had that many to begin with-”

“Now you’re just being needlessly nasty.”

Crowley shook his head, still giggling like a child as he put his hands back on the steering wheel, just in time to park the car as they reached their destination.

“Huh.” He simply said as he climbed out of the car, studying the building as if he’d never seen it before. 

“Ah, bless that boy!” Aziraphale glowed as he excitedly walked back and forth along the front of the bookshop. A rapid survey of the inside as well confirmed that his earthly abode was just as he’d left it, books and all. Actually, there seemed to be a few extras too.

“Ohoh, this is the kind of reading I could be convinced to try.” Crowley grinned, leafing through the flashy illustrations of one ‘Blood Dogs of the Skull Sea’. “Look at this beast! This stuff is inspirational! It makes you wonder why the hellhound didn’t turn into one of these beauties.”

Aziraphale didn’t reply. Yes, everything looked just as it did before, but… “Something’s off.”

Crowley glanced around the shelves in surprise. “Really? Is anything missing?”

“No, no. The place is fine… physically. But there’s a strange feeling in the air.”

Crowley groaned and rolled his eyes. “Are you going to start gushing about ethereal flashes of love again? I thought London was impervious to those.”

“It’s not love.” Aziraphale frowned, trying to focus on the odd sensation. It was different from what he’d felt in Tadfield: Adam’s love for his hometown was a deep-rooted, all-encompassing and aged feeling, a quiet yet powerful acknowledgement, indissolubly weaved into the very matter that composed its streets, its woods, its soil. What the angel was perceiving in his bookshop was more akin to an explosion - sudden and short-lived, yet extremely intense. “I think it’s the opposite of that.”

“Ooooh, you mean spooky? Nice. I love spooky. Still can’t feel anything though.”

“It’s… anger, I think. Rage. And…” Aziraphale paused. The sensation glimpsed in and out of his head swiftly, as if it was moving, pacing, speeding around the place almost like a physical entity, phasing through him and leaving a trail of suffocating heat-

BASTAAAAAARDS!

Aziraphale forgot to breathe. For the following seven minutes, approximately. It happened relatively often, for the most varied reasons. The most surprising thing was that this time it made his chest hurt. “...Grief.”

Crowley stood perfectly still. Very slowly, his features relaxed into what would have looked, to anybody else, like a perfectly natural neutral expression. He gazed around the shop and strolled away from Aziraphale to look out of the nearest window with equally studied nonchalance.

“Must have been one of your neighbours. It was a pretty big fire.” He said, his back turned to Aziraphale. “You know, mothers forgetting babies inside flaming buildings and all that.”

ALL OF YOU!

Aziraphale’s heart thrummed in sympathy with that whirlwind of emotion. By sheer force of habit, he blessed that painful feeling and the creature that had generated it, for nobly bearing the sacrifices that God’s plan required. Considering that Crowley didn’t instantly turn into a screaming, bubbling puddle of goo, Aziraphale guessed that God, in Her infinite wisdom, must have refused to validate that particular blessing, and he sent Her his heartfelt thanks for that as well. Aziraphale let the silence stretch for a while, quietly contemplating that powerful echo. Even when Crowley finally turned to face him, his expression still blank and his hands casually tucked in his pockets, neither of them spoke. It occurred to Aziraphale that his intent staring may have been interpreted as some sort of challenge only when the demon admitted defeat, sighing in annoyance and pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Look, what do you want me to say? Mh?” Crowley asked, spreading his arms. “What do you want me to say that you don’t already know?”

It was a fair point. It was also (it being Crowley’s ruffled demeanour, his flat tone, his casual evasion) so strikingly familiar and typical that it warmed Aziraphale’s heart enough to finally distract him from the lingering negativity of the ambiance.

“...Would you like some hot cocoa?” The angel offered with a kind smile.

“Far from me to twist the knife into what you undoubtedly consider a major flaw in your character,” Aziraphale said as he slid in front of Crowley a steaming cup of chocolate that the demon hadn’t exactly accepted, but that he hadn’t exactly refused either, “but why were you upset so deeply? It’s not like I’ve never been discorporated before.”

“‘It’s not like I’ve never been discorporated before.’” Crowley parroted him, without acknowledging the existence of the beverage. “I swear you say the most idiotic things sometimes.”

“Well, I’m just a tad confused about your reaction, is all-”

“Why would I care about you being discorporated?!” Crowley burst out. “I thought you’d been destroyed! You try to call me - urgently - and I can’t answer, I try to call you and you don’t answer, and then I arrive here and you’re nowhere to be found and everything’s on fire - on fire! The one thing that can damage you! What was I supposed to think?”

“But… You thought it was hellfire?” Aziraphale asked, confusedly. “Why would there be hellfire in my bookshop?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It may have had something to do with the fact that I myself had almost been murdered a scant ten minutes before-”

“You were what?!” Aziraphale gasped, aghast, his own cup freezing halfway towards his mouth.

“Yeah. That was probably it, now that I think about it.” Crowley snarled, tapping his fingers on the table. “You became unreachable five minutes after I received a visit from a couple of pissed-off demons trying to ‘collect’ me. I thought that Hell had decided to settle the score with you as well, while they were at it.”

“My dear boy, I had no idea…” Aziraphale trailed off. He gasped again when the gravity of the situation sank in fully. “Heavens, you said almost murdered?! Oh no… No, this won’t do…”

“Oh, well… Maybe ‘almost murdered’ was laying it on a bit thick.” Crowley admitted, his temper finally subsiding. “They were pretty pissed off, but they didn’t even get close to the murdering part.”

“Thank God for that. But how did you manage to escape from them?”

“Oh. Remember that thermos of holy water you gave me fifty years ago?” A malicious smile spread on the demon’s face. “Good insurance indeed.”

“..Are you trying to tell me that-”

“Oh yes.” 

“You’ve smitten two demons?!” Aziraphale gaped.

“One, actually. The other one managed to escape, but I’d say I was rather-”

“I’ve never smitten a demon!” Aziraphale added, suddenly facing a minuscule existential crisis. “And that’s supposed to be my job!”

“Really? How odd.” The only demon Aziraphale had interacted with in the last six thousand years replied. Still, the angel was too caught up in his own thoughts to pay any attention to sarcasm.

“Do you have any holy water left?”

“Uh, no, I’ve used it all up-”

“Then you’ll need some more. Lots more. It could save your skin if Hell decided to strike again.” Aziraphale stood up and headed towards the kitchen. “Here, give me a moment-”

“Hey, hey, calm down, I don’t need it right this second!” Crowley stammered, pointing at the other’s abandoned cup. “We can worry about that later, your cocoa is going cold-”

“It’s no matter, I need just two minutes-”

Exactly two minutes and seventeen seconds later, Aziraphale handed to a mildly astonished Crowley the biggest and sturdiest piece of tupperware he owned, filled to the brim with the precious liquid.

“Did you just make all this?”

“Well, yes. Blessing tap water isn’t exactly a lengthy or complicated process.”

“You can make literal gallons of holy water in two minutes, and it took you a hundred years to decide to give me two cups’ worth of it last time?!” The demon complained, without moving to grasp the container. “How very generous of you!”

“I didn’t know what you were planning to do with it! I was concerned!”

“Of what?!”

“That you might… mishandle it and get hurt! You wouldn’t give your sharpest kitchen knife to a five-year-old child just because he asked for it, would you?”

“I would. Anyway that’s a very unflattering comparison and I resent it.”

“Well, yes, here’s more holy water than you’ll ever need, hopefully.” Aziraphale impatiently held out the pitcher towards Crowley’s chest, who positively jumped back holding his arms out defensively.

“Wait wait wait wait! Your cuff is wet! Have you even dried your hands? Are you trying to kill me?”

“What- That’s just normal water! I blessed the one in the container after sealing it! Do you really think I’m that outrageously clumsy?”

“Considering that you’ve discorporated yourself through sheer clumsiness just the other day, yeah, kind of.”

“Oh, for Heaven’s- look, if you want it, it’s here. If not, do whatever you want.” Aziraphale put down the plastic carafe on the table primly, and then he finally set down to sip his cocoa. Crowley eyed the container from every possible angle, clearly expecting to find some traitorous droplet rolling down its sides, then he poked the lid gingerly.

“I don’t trust this thing not to burst open by accident before I can put it somewhere safer. Got any tape?”

Aziraphale fetched some packing tape from the cupboard and handed it to Crowley. He stood beside him, watching him secure the lid meticulously for a couple of minutes. Now that the idle bickering wasn’t distracting him any more, Aziraphale found his own soul attuning again with the background thrumming of the demon’s past anguish. It felt only natural for Aziraphale to squeeze the other’s shoulder warmly.

“You know, I’m very proud of you.”

“...Uh?” Crowley squinted at him as if the angel had just sprouted a second head. That is to say, not as if he’d done something utterly impossible, but merely something very random for no reason whatsoever.

“For showing up at Tadfield, even after all this. You were hunted down by your own brethren, you suffered a painful loss, and yet you reined in your wrath and braced your sorrow and still found the will to fight for this world. It was very brave, and selfless.”

“Uhm.” Crowley answered, with a strange dumbfounded look that instantly raised a few doubts in Aziraphale’s mind.

“That’s… that’s what you did, isn’t it?”

“Uuuuuuuuuuh- Yeah. Yeah, yeah, of course.” Crowley floundered with the elegance of a beached whale. “That’s what I did… eventually- which is to say- yeah-”

“‘Eventually’? What do you mean, ‘eventually’?”

“I mean- not right away, I needed a moment to... You know, my human operatives never managed to locate the Antichrist, so I was… kind of lost as to what I should have been doing in that moment-”

“What did you do?”

“And even if I had known where to go, what were the odds of me, all alone, averting the apocalypse? Realistically speaking-”

“What did you do, Crowley?”

“Well, since you were no more, and the Earth was going to be no more very soon regardless of what I did, I thought… you know, I may as well enjoy one last bottle of scotch in that old-fashioned pub in Hollen Street-”

“...Good Lord.” Aziraphale covered his eyes with his hand, his tone falling as flat as his expectations. “You were going to get hopelessly drunk and do nothing whatsoever about Armageddon, weren’t you?”

“Hey, don’t you dare use that tone with me! Not when I was the one who had to convince you to do anything in the first place! You were merrily going to let the sea bubble and all the creatures, great and small, be vaporized in a blaze of divine glory, remember?”

“For an entirely different reason! I was simply trying my best to follow God’s plan! You never cared a trifle about that! You only ever cared about your earthly pleasures - such as getting drunk while the whole world goes up in flames, apparently-”

“Look, what was I supposed to do?! I didn’t even know where to go! If it wasn’t for your book-”

”My book? What book?”

“Well, not your book, the American lady’s book. Agnes Nutter’s Something Something Prophecies.” Crowley resumed plastering tape all over the already foolproof lid. “I found it here while I was looking for you and I took it, because why not? And then I was leafing through it at the pub and I found your notes about Adam and the airbase and- and then this strange thing happened, you know? I opened the book on a completely random page and the very first prophecy I read was… I don’t remember how it went exactly, but it was… obviously aimed at me. In a very specific way. And it said that my ethereal companion hadn’t vanished, but I’d meet him again at the place of the final confrontation, or something like that, and I’d just read on your notes that everything written on the book is invariably true, and I thought…’Oh.’”

“Oh.” Aziraphale echoed.

“Yeah.”

While Crowley’s peculiar tale depicted a somewhat less virtuous attitude towards pain and unfavourable odds than what he’d first envisioned, Aziraphale had to admit that there was something undeniably noble in the idea of the demon abandoning his drunken stupor and speeding across the country on a flaming car the moment a few key indications and the promise of reuniting with his best friend reignited his hope. There was something undeniably touching about it on a very personal level too.

“Well... I suppose I can’t- that’s enough tape, don’t you think?” Aziraphale said gesturing at the carafe, which was by now mummified under layers of ugly brown tape.

“Uh. Right.” Crowley blinked at the container as if he’d just become aware of its existence before sitting down to finally take a sip of his own cocoa. As he sat back as well, Aziraphale took care of heating the beverage up to a pleasant temperature with a thought before it reached the demon’s lips.

“I was saying, I suppose I can’t blame you for taking a moment to… gather your thoughts, so to speak. I must confess that I myself haven’t acted quite as promptly as I could have in the last days.”

“Oh. Really?”

“Yes. Admittedly, by the time I called you, I’d been aware of the Antichrist’s whereabouts for… a little bit.”

“Yeah?” Crowley frowned. “How little, exactly?”

“Oh, roughly… twelve hours, I think.”

“Twelve hours?!” Crowley sputtered. “We could have got to Tadfield twelve hours earlier?! Do you have any idea how much trouble we’d have spared ourselves with a twelve-hour advance?”

“Well-”

“I wouldn’t have had to drive my car through a bloody wall of fire, for one!” Crowley threw his hands in the air in exasperation. “What have you even been doing in all that time?”

“I was… considering the situation. You’ll admit I was in a rather delicate position, and I felt that I had to choose my actions carefully.” Aziraphale argued. “Eventually I decided to tell you, and the upper offices as well. It seemed like a good way to help our cause without, you know, openly obstructing Heaven’s plans.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“What else did you decide?”

“Nothing. That was what I came up with, and so I-”

“And it took you twelve hours to decide that?” Crowley groaned, covering his face. “Quick thinking really isn’t your thing, is it?”

“Well, there’s no reason to dwell on recriminations.” Aziraphale stated briskly. “Everything turned out just fine, in the end.”

“If by ‘fine’ you mean that ten million demons’ and ten million angels’ best laid plans and efforts went completely into smoke for no purpose other than postponing the inevitable battle for another… I don’t know, one or two thousand years - then sure, everything’s just dandy.” Crowley muttered to his cocoa. “Do you seriously believe this was all God’s plan? All of this for nothing? What’s the bloody point?”

“You know I can’t answer that question. But I wouldn’t say this was all for nothing. From my very limited and imperfect perspective, for example, I can clearly see at least two creatures who have ultimately benefited from this whole Apocalypse ordeal. But I’m sure there must be many, many more.”

“And those would be?”

“Adam, for one. Armageddon truly brought out the best in him. Didn’t you hear him talk with the Horsepeople? His words were so humble and simple, yet such an inspiring embodiment of all virtues! Prudence and temperance above all, and then justice and courage-”

“Yeah, yeah, just wait until he reaches puberty and then we’ll see where all those virtues will go.”

“Still, you have to admit that, for someone who’s supposed to be the literal spawn of Evil, his spirit is remarkably untainted. I’m sure he wouldn’t have turned out like this without going through the process of human life, or if he had come into existence among demons in the depths of Hell. Maybe this was all this proto-Armageddon was about: offering a chance of redemption to what would have otherwise been unredeemable spirits.”

“Mmmh.” Crowley crossed his arms with evident skepticism. “And who’s the other one?”

“Why you, of course.” Aziraphale couldn’t hold back a smile at Crowley’s stunned silence.

“...Sorry, what?”

“Isn’t it obvious? As I said, during the past week you have displayed an admirably selfless side-”

“Watch it, angel.” Crowley muttered. “Keep casting aspersions on me and no miracle will be able to fix what I’ll do to your collection of Bibles.”

“Oh, don’t be a child about it. It’s perfectly understandable, considering how much time you spent around me. I am a Principality, after all-”

“Excuse me. I must have misheard.” Crowley raised his finger, then he leaned towards Aziraphale across the table with a malevolent squint. “Are you by any chance telling me that you’ve been trying to inspire goodness in me?”

“Maybe.” Aziraphale gave him an apologetic smile. “I didn’t hold much hope to succeed, but I’ll admit I was rather curious. A few good deeds now and then, less evil ones performed in person, after yours truly accepted to carry them out for you… I wonder if all that could tip the moral scales at least a little bit, so to speak.” Aziraphale let out a small laugh in response to Crowley’s stunned silence. “What? Haven’t you been trying to do the same since we met?”

Crowley’s eyebrows raised so much that they almost disappeared into his hairline, and he opened and closed his mouth soundlessly like a fish gasping for air before he managed to put together a reply. “I- You- you knew?”

“Of course I knew! Why else would a demon associate so freely with a sworn enemy?”

“But- then- why did you keep seeing me?!”

“Because there was no way you’d succeed, obviously. An angel being corrupted, in this day and age! And me, of all people! No offense, but the mere idea is laughable.”

“It’s no more laughable than a demon being redeemed!”

“I disagree on that. Demons used to be angels, after all. Evil is an acquired trait for your lot, and who’s to say your innate core of Goodness isn’t still there, ready to be unburied?”

“No. No no no, all right, this is much more than ridiculous. This is blasphemous. You thought you could pave the road to the redemption of someone who’s been irrevocably deemed unforgivable? You thought you could single-handedly overturn a sentence of eternal damnation issued by the Almighty Herself? You thought you knew better than God?” Crowley spread his arms in outrage. “And they said Lucifer had too high an opinion of himself!”

“I never said that God was wrong.” Aziraphale raised his hands defensively. “Your punishment was amply deserved. But that happened thousands of years ago. Some things have changed. Some demons may have changed too. And God has always been way more forgiving than your lot credited Her for.”

“You are out of your mind.”

“But… Oh, you must see my point! Think of the lives you saved- think of the whole world you saved!”

“Literally none of that was done out of goodwill. Especially not for the humans. I just like what they’ve done with the place, therefore I want it to keep existing. For myself. It’s entirely selfish. End of the story.”

“And,” Aziraphale pressed on, leaning towards Crowley as well, “you rebelled!”

“Uh… Yeah. Yeah, I did. That’s what I’m saying, it isn’t the kind of thing God just gets over with-” 

“No, I don’t mean against God! You rebelled against Satan! If you had reported to Hell about the baby swapping as soon as you learnt of it, they still could have found a solution- tailing the hound, for example. But you did not! You sabotaged them, you went as far as to fight other demons-!

“Out of self presevation! No one in their right mind would keep working for someone who’s just going to slaughter them at the end of the job! I was doing anything I could think of doing to save my skin! You know, selfishly! How are you struggling to grasp this basic concept so much?!”

“And then you fought Satan himself!” Aziraphale proclaimed, undeterred by the growing heat of Crowley’s answers. “You did not run, you did not turn sides-”

“As if you could just run from the boss. And fighting is a bit of a strong word, isn’t it? The kid didn’t let even the tip of his horns out of the pavement-”

“That hardly matters, what matters is the intent! You held your ground, proud and determined, ready to fight him ‘til the bitter end, armed only with the one thing you loved most in the world in your hand-”

“Oi, oi, oi!” Crowley sputtered. “Lay it on a bit thicker, will you? Where did that- You can’t just-”

Crowley’s confusion gave Aziraphale pause. The demon was growing considerably red. Oh dear. Could he ignite out of sheer rage? That would be a first. “I really don’t think I’m exaggerating. You were ready to die fighting him, we both were.”

“Not that! The thing- the ‘thing you love the most’ thing, what even-”

“That too. At least I had a proper weapon, but you only had that… what was that, a piece of your Bentley? I’m sure it had a huge emotional value for you, but in terms of offensive capabilities… Talk about David and Goliath…”

That shocked Crowley into silence. “...Oh. The car.” He eventually managed. “Yeah. The car. Yeah.”

“Yes. What did you think I was-” The answer struck Aziraphale before the question was finished. He had only two hands, after all. “...Oh, Crowley-”

“All right, that’s IT!” Crowley suddenly shouted, shooting up on his feet and banging his fist on the table. The sunlight filtering from the window behind Crowley was blocked by the magnificent pair of wings that spread from his back, casting a looming shadow above the sitting angel. The rest of the room grew inexplicably darker as well as the demon towered above Aziraphale, mouth twisted and teeth bared in an enraged snarl. He pointed towards his wings. “Look. Look at these, do you see them? Not a single white feather. Not a lighter shade of grey anywhere. Do you see them? Black. Charred. Tainted. Not by fire, or tar, or soot, or mud. By God. God changed them. Changed everything. And you can’t fix God’s work. You can’t get a bloody word in edgewise, actually. Believe me, we’re the ones who tried. Now,” Crowley bent downwards still, his back arched like a predator ready to strike, his nose mere centimetres away from Aziraphale, “I don’t know what gave you the impression of being smarter than the highest order of the universe, but I think we can agree that whatever little self-empowering game you’ve been playing hasn’t changed anything. Right?”

“Right.” Aziraphale replied without the slightest inflection, as he was starting to feel like he’d overstepped some boundary. Not so much with the universe as with his friend.

“Right. So quit yapping about goodness and selflessness and whatnot before I show you exactly what’s the difference between the two of us.” Aziraphale remained respectfully silent. Finally Crowley straightened up as his wings disappeared and the room cleared up again. The demon fixed his jacket, scowling at the surrounding shelves as if they had personally offended him. “Keep the water, I don’t need it. I have plenty of other tricks up my sleeve. Bye.”

“What? Wait! Where are you going?” Aziraphale startled, hurrying after Crowley as he walked off to the front door.

“Away. I’m busy.”

“I thought you were on holiday.” The angel almost bumped into the other as he stopped and turned on his heels abruptly, another snarling reply ready to fire. “And I was wondering if we could have lunch together at the Ritz.”

“Why? So that your ethereal influence can polish my spirit a bit more?”

“Really, now. You know me better than that.” Aziraphale gave him his most conciliatory smile. “No point in saving the world if we don’t get to enjoy it, right?”

Crowley hesitated just long enough to let Aziraphale know that he was well aware of being played. And then he did it anyway. “...Right. But you’re paying.”

“Of course.”

“What do you think would happen to us, if we were to die from now on?” Aziraphale asked, several hours and a lucullan lunch later.

“Well, aren’t you a bundle of laughs lately?” Crowley deadpanned. He was enjoying the fine afternoon breeze and the idle quacking of the ducks in St. James’ Park too much to embark in such grim elucubrations.

“I think it’s a legitimate concern. I don’t see either Heaven or Hell granting us a new body after all the trouble we’ve caused.” 

“I guess not. But I think we’re covered at least until Adam remains on Earth. He didn’t even have to snap his fingers to make you a new one.”

“You have remarkable faith in that child, haven’t you?” Aziraphale graced Crowley with an obscenely proud smile. The demon grimaced and waved at him dismissively.

“Faith has nothing to do with it. Faith is blind and deaf and groundless. Adam has put up a pretty effective and tangible demonstration of his powers. And he likes us. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. If you get discorporated, just knock on his mind and he’ll fix it.”

“But he won’t be here forever to help us. He’s still a mortal, just like Jesus.” Aziraphale insisted from above his newly acquired copy of Treasure Island. “What about afterwards?”

“I have a better question for you.” Crowley enunciated importantly, shifting to lean on the bench just a tad more composedly and deciding to change the topic. “What about his afterwards?”

“...You mean what will happen to him after his death? Well, won’t he just go back where he came from?”

“To Hell? Really?” Crowley leaned towards Aziraphale conspiratorially. “Do you really think that Satan will let anyone, including his son - especially his son - potentially endowed with the power to rival him, into his own Reign? Do you have any idea of the trouble it could cause? Demons have a strong tendency to question the authorities, you may have noticed.”

“I… I suppose you do have a point.” Aziraphale had to agree, visibly struck by the realization. “But where would he go then? Surely not to Heaven… The Antichrist in Heaven, could you even imagine it?”

“Not really, no. But there’s another possibility.” Crowley tipped his glasses forwards, staring pointedly at the angel from above the dark lenses. “If neither Reign will want him, he may… you know, carve his own place for himself. A new one. Create his own path.”

“What?” Aziraphale slightly leaned away from Crowley in sheer shock. “A third faction? For the love of God, Crowley, don’t even mention it! Aren’t things already difficult enough with two parties at war? Another schism, whether within Hell itself or from the outside, would only compromise the balance of the universe even further!”

“Looks to me like a third faction has been existing for a long time now.”

“Pardon?”

Crowley gestured vaguely all around. “How would you call the six billions humans currently living on this planet, and all the others who came before them?”

“They’re not a faction. They’re-”

“Sort of cattle, when you think about it-”

“Creatures.” Aziraphale corrected him sternly.

“Creatures that both our lots have been merrily cannibalizing for the last six millennia for the sake of our own petty squabble-”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that your lot has been indeed cannibalizing all the poor souls you could snatch.” Aziraphale pointed out primly. “We, on the other hand, have been educating them. Guiding them. Nurturing them. Cherishing them-”

“Oh yeah, those words sound so much nicer, don’t they?” Crowley sneered, barely repressing the impulse to hiss in annoyance.

“Are you seriously trying to tell me that you see no fundamental difference between what we do and what you do?” Aziraphale asked in dismay. “Do you really, honestly believe Heaven and Hell to be on equal moral ground?”

“All I’m saying is that it’s really easy for me to imagine these guys,” he insisted, pointing at a random couple of passersby who clearly did not appreciate being pointed at by a perfect stranger in the middle of a heated argument, “getting fed up with both our and your interferences sooner or later, and it looks to me like they may just find their own champion in our dear Antichrist.”

“This is ridiculous! We needn’t talk about such a hare-brained notion any longer.” Aziraphale asserted firmly, then a thought struck him and he eyed Crowley suspiciously. “I do hope you aren’t planning to put strange ideas in that child’s head.”

“Putting ideas in his head?! He has enough ideas of his own to build a brand new universe from scratch! He doesn’t need mine!”

“Good, because the last thing everyone needs right now is another Rebellion.”

“Why? Are you scared he might have better luck than we did?” Crowley couldn’t help but smirk.

“Of course not. It’s just… not the right way to go about it.”

“Asking questions and demanding a little more respect and straightforwardness from your boss isn’t the right way to go about solving a problem? ‘Cause that’s what we did-”

“You raised your hand against God.” Aziraphale’s glare was more scalding and cutting than his sword had ever been. “You took up arms against Her and your own brethren, and you did it first and without provocation, and don’t even try to justify that.”

“I-” Crowley started, but bit his lip not to continue. He hadn’t taken up any arms, surely not first, he thought. He hadn’t, but others had. Others on what he hadn’t realized yet would permanently become ‘his side’. And by the time he had finally grasped the severity of the rift that had formed between those new sides, it was already far too late for reconsiderations. He turned his gaze away from the angel, and focussed instead on a couple of black swans elegantly brawling for the possession of a floating chunk of bread. The park was oddly quiet, and their irked squawking was the only sound the demon could hear for several minutes.

“My point is,” Crowley suddenly said when he spied Aziraphale’s mouth moving to speak, because he would not let him have the last word on that topic even if it killed him, “that if one feels that he isn’t being treated fairly, you can’t really blame him for trying to look after himself. At least we can agree on that, yes? Yes.”

Aziraphale’s silence felt like a hard-earned victory. Neither Heaven nor Hell would be impartial when the moment to judge Adam would come, and if the Antichrist was to be shunned by both sides, wouldn’t it be only natural for him to-

“Is that why you rebelled?” The angel asked, eyes fixed on the book open on his lap. It took Crowley by surprise, how delicately Aziraphale had uttered that ‘you’, so very different from the spiteful ‘you’ of the rivalling group. It was a very personal question, the most personal question the angel had ever asked him.

Crowley didn’t answer. Aziraphale didn’t ask again.

“Well,” the angel sighed after a long silence, “I guess my point is that we’d better be extremely careful not to be discorporated in the future. Our sudden reappearance in our respective head offices might have rather unpleasant consequences.”

“You just can’t stop worrying about it, can you?” Crowley remarked, a tad mockingly. “I guess it comes with spending your entire existence as an upstanding Heaven citizen. Never really got on God’s bad side, have you?”

“Well, there was that little mishap with my sword...”

“Psh, I’m not talking about misplacing your toys. I mean Her really bad side. I’m talking about going openly against Her will - like you may very well have done by averting Armageddon-”

“Excuse you, I firmly believe I’ve been doing nothing but serving the Greater Good during these trying times.” Aziraphale countered, rather piqued. “And the Greater Good is God’s will by definition, so I don’t see why She should be in any way displeased by my actions… I believe.” A flash of uncertainty crossed the angel’s features, but he shook it off immediately. “Besides, everything that happens anywhere and at any time is part of Her plan, and therefore part of Her will, and therefore good.”

“Well, excuse you, but by that ridiculous logic the Rebellion was part of Her plan too, and therefore good, and therefore none of us should have been banished and doomed to eternal spite and damnation. And yet.” 

“No! That is an entirely different matter, and-” Aziraphale stopped talking abruptly. He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed deeply. “Let us not talk about politics. It never ends well.”

“Yeah, I wonder why.” Crowley crossed his arms belligerently, but he didn’t push the argument further. Not that specific argument, at least. “Anyway, I still don’t see why you’re having kittens over this disobedience thing. If you think God Herself has no beef with you, what’s the matter? What’s the worst thing your seraphic superiors could do to you, uh? Call you back up to head office and confine you to a boring desk job where you couldn’t possibly hinder their holy machinations? Oh boy, oh dear, mighty scary punishment-”

“It’s not myself I’m worried about, Crowley!” Aziraphale interrupted him vehemently, hands tightly clasped in his lap. It took Crowley frankly too long to figure out the meaning of his troubled grimace.

“...You’re worried about me?”

“Of course I am! Desk jobs and bureaucracy will be the last of your worries if you end up within the grasp of a cohort of vengeful demons! They’ve already tried to destroy you once-”

“No, no no no, you don’t get it, it’s fine. I’m not in danger!” Crowley exclaimed, stretching the truth roughly to the size of Australia. “They’ll never manage to get their hands on me. The top brass wouldn’t come up here just to retrieve a small fry like me, they’ll just send a couple of brainless grunts now and then. And I’m not calling them brainless as gratuitous slander, they really are unbelievably stupid. Not even remotely a threat.”

“You’ve destroyed a demon! One of your own kind! They won’t overlook such an act so easily, for sure!”

“All right, listen. First of all, demons killing other demons isn’t nearly as outrageous as you think. Happens every other day. One day you’re chatting with Valak from Heat Management about the new strain of flies Beelzebub’s sporting and the next day, poof! Someone tells you that he’s been shoved into a furnace by a pissed-off Count because of a broken thermostat. Not even worth a slap on the wrist.”

“Still,” Aziraphale hesitated, “your case is clearly different. It’s outright treason! They’ll send some skillful operatives-”

“The ones they already sent were the skillful ones! Dukes of Hell, no less! And I dispatched both of them literally in five minutes! Want to know how?” Crowley stood up and started pacing back and forth in front of the bench, gesturing wildly to re-en-act his epic tale of cunning and strategy. “All right, here’s how. The holy water you gave me, right? I poured that into a bucket and put the bucket on top of the door of the study, which was ajar - what are you looking at? Get lost!” He added, glaring at a couple of nearby kids who had interrupted their aimless running around to stare at him as he stood poised on the tip of his toes to position an invisible prop on top of an invisible surface. The brats scampered away immediately. “Anyway, Ligur opened the door and bam, one Duke of Hell melted into nothingness, just like that. And the second? Well, actually I did have a plan involving holy water for him too, but that one didn’t really fly - but then!” Crowley pointed at Aziraphale suddenly and enthusiastically enough to make him flinch. “You called, and I - brilliantly - got inspired by that and trapped Hastur into my phone! ...For a while - but the point is that it was just that easy.”

“Why, wasn’t that ingenious of you?” Aziraphale said, his eyes shining with such disarming and honest admiration that Crowley completely lost track of his thoughts.

“I- well, yeah, I guess I-” He started, before his brain rebooted and he smacked his forehead in frustration. “No! No, it wasn’t! It was dumb! That’s my point! A bucket on a door, Aziraphale! Two Dukes of Hell tricked by the sort of pranks that some dumb human toddlers- Oi! Why are you still here?!” He suddenly shouted, as his gaze fell on a bush that did absolutely nothing to hide the same couple of brats he’d just shooed away, still spying on his little pantomime. As they ran away again, Crowley took care of summoning a couple of ringed snakes and sending them on their heels, just to provide that extra zest of entertainment that their afternoon clearly lacked.

“Ehr, you were saying?” Aziraphale asked, eyeing the hissing grass with mild concern.

“I was saying that my esteemed colleagues have the tactical prowess of drunk baboons, and they don’t even bother to keep up with what’s going on up here. A child with a mobile phone could outsmart them. So no, they’re never going to get me.” Crowley plopped back on the bench heavily, crossing both arms and legs and deliberately channeling a good three decades of macho cinematography in his stance. “Not on my turf.”

“That’s reassuring, but it doesn’t quite put all my worries at rest. Don’t you think we should at least keep a close eye on each other for a while?”

“How so?”

“Oh, just seeing each other. More often than once a decade, I mean. Exchanging information, checking that we’re still around in one piece.”

“And if we aren’t? What if one day I just disappear, uh? Are you going to march into the depths of Hell armed with your non-existent army and your lost sword?”

“I was thinking more of a tanker filled with holy water.”

Crowley snorted. “That would be a sight.”

“So? What do you say? Once a month? Once a week? At least until things get calmer.”

“Oh boy, I don’t know if I have all this free time to ‘keep an eye’ on you. I’ll have to check my agenda.”

“You’re still on a self-proclaimed holiday.”

“And do you have any idea how time-consuming that is?”

[newsiegirlscout]

Written for the MPaS Halloween Writing Contest Between Two People Based On a Lighthearted Conversation!

If you’re anyone else, Happy Halloween!

And if you’re @thelordismygod-blog---it’s on, FISKE.

(Written rather hastily, but....enjoy!)

The atmosphere of Miss Lynn’s classroom was one of barely-contained jubilee as children dressed as anything from faeries to well-known fictitious movie figures to what appeared to be Avicenna passed out sweets to their classmates’ gaily-colored boxes. In celebration of Halloween, she had agreed to forgo class and allow a day of festivities to the delight of her students--the only problem being that while many teachers were content to simply show their children films, she felt that her students would soon see The Nightmare Before Christmas more than enough times over their elementary career and had opted to let them choose an assortment of activities. 

This was a decision she had an instinct she would soon regret. 

After a few minutes of excited chattering once all treats were passed out and games were played (which, with as many coordination-required activities with sugary incentives they had set up, seemed like a wise choice to play before passing out candy), Penny clapped her hands. Almost instantly--and what a miracle it was for a second-grade teacher--the others turned around, giving her their full attention. 

The lights darkened, and the bright beam of a flashlight illuminated her face. 

“Will everyone sit down wherever? We’ve decided to start our scary stories as soon as everybody’s settled.”

Though some of the students returned to their seats, the majority chose to either sit down where they were, or drag beanbags from the class library to the front of the room. As they watched with anticipation, electric tealights began to alight around the classroom.

Finally, what appeared to be the last one flickered twice faintly, then suddenly came to life as the face of a luminescent amber countenance as a pumpkin. The children screamed in delight, then watched, giggling nervously, as a certain flame-haired boy climbed onto the stool in center stage and set the gourd on his lap. 

“Thanks, Penny.” he said to his friend as she clicked off her flashlight and handed it to him. “Our first story, told by yours truly, is not one of fabrication and cheap fright. Please take heed and listen, for our protagonist may be at your window next.”

He was met by a sea of confused stares.

“This is a true story.” he said blatantly.

The room gasped.

“This, my listeners....is the tale of Lizzie Borden.”

########################################################

Mr. Peabody and Sherman walked down the cobble-strewn streets of nineteenth-century London, taking no small note of the gossiping packs of passersby and the apprehensive nature of the villagers. 

“Mr. Peabody, what’s going on?” Sherman asked with a wavering air in his voice, “These people are acting like they’ve just seen a ghost!” 

The beagle winked. “Well, that may not be far from the truth. Perhaps this gentleman can fill us in.”, he said, tipping a coin to an excitable newsboy in exchange for a paper.

As the redhead ran his eyes over the headline, his eyes widened.

MAN AND WIFE KILLED AND MUTILATED BY AXE

Of course, a picture, however grainy and out-of-focus, had to be included in the article, which the beagle noticed a second too late.

“Wow”, Sherman said, giggling nervously, “This guy...really got it in the head.”

Mr. Peabody flushed a light pink. “Perhaps I should take that, Sherman.” he said hastily, skimming over the article, “It says here young Miss Borden, after some time of what could be considered provocation, was suspected and convicted of the murders of her father and stepmother.”

“What does provoclamation mean?” he inquired with an air of curiosity.

“Provocation. Essentially, actions or speech, especially those meant deliberately, that annoy, frustrate, or infuriate one. Your friend Miss Peterson provoked you in the cafeteria last year by using those demeaning terms--”

##########################################################

Sitting front-row center, the mentioned Miss Peterson flushed and tugged a lock of golden hair in front of her face.

“Did he really say that? I said I was sorry!”

Sherman smiled. 

“I know, Penny. But you also kind of tried to kill me. So I think Mr. Peabody’s allowed to bring it up.”

#############################################################

“--or in this case, Mr. Borden was not exactly what you’d call a well-liked person.  He was rather affluent--wealthy, that is--and gave large donations to various branches of the family, but remained somewhat of a Scrooge within his own household. In addition, Lizzie had been building a roost in the barn to attract pigeons, but Mr. Borden, believing they attracted children to hunt them, killed them with a hatchet.”

Sherman’s jaw dropped, tears welling in his eyes.

“Yes, I would say it’s rather unjust myself. But I should probably mention that the specific weapon suspected of the Borden’s deaths was also a hatchet.”

The red-headed rascal pouted. “Not really helping, Mr. Peabody.”

His guardian shrugged. “Unfortunately, those are the facts. Since we’re here to attend an important gathering requiring that knowledge, there isn’t really any getting around it, but I do apologize. Are you ready to hear the full account?”

Sherman put his hand on his stomach and expressed distinct unease.

“Is it alright if we get a root beer first?”

#######

Hunched over his rootbeer in the soda bar, Sherman listened intently to Mr. Peabody.

“Alright. The first murder was that of Mrs. Borden, who was believed to have faced her killer during the attack and received multiple blows to the head and face. The door jammed when the maid attempted to enter, causing her to utter an expletive, after which Lizzie was heard laughing on the upstairs floor; a point from which the body would immediately have been seen. Lizzie later informed her maid of a department store sale and permitted her to go, but she declined.”

“A short time after this, Bridget was awoken by Lizzie exclaiming her father’s death.”

“Yep. She definitely did it.” Sherman said with finality, “We aren’t going to see her, are we?”

“Au contrair, my boy;” Mr. Peabody replied grimly, “In a sense, we are. We are Miss Lizzie Borden’s lawyers.” 

“So...we’re gonna send her to jail for the good of all mankind?” he said with a final desperate smile.

Mr. Peabody took a sip of his soda before continuing. “Ah, alas. In the timeline where she is incarcerated, I fear a greater impact may be forced on society in the present. No calculation on canine or human nature can be assured, but in most outcomes I’ve been able to see, lesser evidence is examined in the present, allowing many more convicted, dangerous criminals to go free.”

“No, Sherman, our job is to prove Miss Borden innocent.”

#######################################################

The class gasped. 

“Did you let her go?” asked one timid boy near the front.

“Not yet,” Sherman said with a wink, “Actually, we still have to attend the trials and get licenses and stuff. The one big problem is tracking down Lizzie; she left, and her sister never saw her again.”

The phone rang suddenly, startling Miss Lynn.

“Miss Lynn’s classroom, teacher speaking!” she said quickly. After a minute of listening, she hung up.

“Sherman, you’re dismissed early. Your father is waiting for you in the office.”

The class watched, fascinated, as the boy left. In reality, he only had a particularly well-scheduled optometrist appointment; but who’s to say which is fact, and which is depiction?

[salediscountggdb-blog]

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[goarticletec-blog]

PS4 Pro vs PS4: What's the difference?

New Post has been published on https://www.articletec.com/ps4-pro-vs-ps4-whats-the-difference/

PS4 Pro vs PS4: What's the difference?

PS4 or PS4 Pro: what’s the difference? Does it really matter which one you buy? 

The answer, short and sweet, is that it absolutely matters. Sure, they both play the same games, use the same peripherals and are joined together by the PlayStation Store, but when it comes to how games look and feel, they’re entirely different.

The PS4 Pro, the newer of the two consoles, is Sony’s premium console. It plays games in a higher resolution (4K) and often in High Dynamic Range (HDR). It’s a little more expensive, but that’s because it uses slightly different hardware to get better results in terms of performance. It’s not the PS5.

The PS4, well, you probably know what that is already. But, if you don’t, it’s Sony’s fourth major home console, not counting remakes or the spectacularly short-lived PlayStation TV. It’s a huge step up from the PS3, and plays a whole new set of games.

So what’s the difference?

The biggest difference is resolution: Whereas the original PS4 is limited to 1080p, the new PS4 Pro can go as high as 2160p – or 4K, as it’s more commonly known. The catch (because there’s always a catch isn’t there?) is that games will need to receive a PS4 Pro patch to enable these more detailed resolutions. 

We only point that last part out because it’s up to game developers themselves to issue those patches and ultimately utilize the more powerful hardware. No PS4 Pro mode, no PS4 Pro performance.

Thankfully, going forward, all new PS4 games will need to include a ‘Pro Mode’, which will allow them to make the most of the Pro’s enhanced hardware. This guarantees that there’ll be a lot of Pro content in the future and is slightly different than the approach Microsoft is taking that developers are free to opt out.

Now, it’s worth noting that should you want to see what games in 4K HDR look like, you’re going to need a 4K HDR TV – your old 1080p screen probably won’t see a benefit outside of a few extra frames. 

Should you buy a PS4 Pro and have a 4K TV on hand, however, you should prepare yourself – games look great on the PS4 Pro. Textures in Spider-Man on PS4 Pro are significantly clearer than they are on the regular PS4. Insomniac (the game’s developer) has done a great job optimizing the game for PS4, but playing it on a Pro is the far superior experience. 

PS4 vs PS4 Pro price comparison

The Pro offers some rather obvious advantages over the original PS4, but there are still plenty of reasons to go for the latter. Namely, price. Take a look at some of the best deals available for Sony’s popular console.

Of course, if you decide that a PS4 Pro is more up your alley, you’re in for a treat –especially if you have a new 4K HDR television to play it on. You’ll find the lowest prices on Sony’s PlayStation 4 Pro further down below.

Appearance

PS4 Pro is bigger, but not by much

Sleeker finish on top of the Pro console

The most obvious difference between the original PS4 and the PS4 Pro is the addition of an extra layer onto the console.

While the original PS4 had two layers separated by a gap for the disc drive and two USB ports, the PS4 Pro has three layers.

Thankfully this hasn’t lead to too much of an increase in its dimensions. The original PS4 measured 275.1 x 305.1 x 53.1mm, while the Pro measures 295 x 327 x 55mm. That means it’s slightly bigger, it’s 2cm deeper and 2cm wider, but interestingly it’s more or less the same height.

It’s also half a kilogram heavier, or just over a pound.

Connections

PS4 Pro has an extra USB port

PS4 Pro also has an optical audio port

Original PS4 uses HDMI 1.4, Pro uses HDMI 2.0a

In terms of rear connectors, the PS4 Pro is nearly identical to the standard PS4, aside from the addition of an extra USB 3.0 port – which should be pretty useful if you’re planning on hooking up a PlayStation VR, since the headset takes up a USB port when it’s plugged in. 

An extra USB port is an excellent inclusion, since the PSVR brings back the Move Controllers which each need a USB port to charge. 

Unlike the new slimmer PS4, the PS4 Pro does include an optical audio output on its rear like the original launch PS4.

The final difference between the ports on the back of the console is the HDMI port. While the original PS4 had an HDMI 1.4 port, the PS4 Pro has an HDMI 2.0 port to allow it to output at 4K resolutions (more on that later).

Important to note is that you don’t need to upgrade your HDMI cable to take advantage of 4K, despite what Sony is claiming on its official FAQ. Any HDMI cable that can handle 1080p can do 4K just fine. 

Optical drive

Both systems have Blu-ray drives

Neither are capable of 4K Blu-ray playback

This is a particularly sore spot for Sony’s new system. Despite speculation to the contrary, the PS4 Pro does not include an Ultra HD Blu-ray player. It can play Full HD 1080p Blu-ray discs just the same as the original PS4.

Sony’s decision to omit a Ultra-HD Blu-ray drive from the system is puzzling, considering that Blu-ray support was one of the major boons of the PS3. Now, Sony might be saving that for another console down the road, however, considering that Microsoft’s Xbox One S already has the high-end disc drive, it would’ve benefitted Sony to launch the Pro with one as well.

Internals

PS4 Pro has better GPU performance (4.2 TFLOP vs 1.84)

PS4 Pro has 802.11ac Wi-Fi antenna and Bluetooth 4.0

PS4 Pro has an additional 1GB of DDR3 RAM

The internals are where we see our first major difference from the original PS4.

Both consoles share an AMD Jaguar x86-64 8-core CPU, which has seen a 30% boost in clock-speed from 1.6GHz to 2.1GHz. 

Meanwhile the GPU has seen a much bigger performance increase. Its power has been doubled, and its clock-speed has been boosted from 800MHz to 911MHz.

In total the GPU has jumped from 1.84 TFLOP in the launch PS4 to 4.2 TFLOP in the Pro. This bump is in order to accommodate the new 4K functionality.

The Wi-Fi of the Pro has also seen an upgrade to include 802.11ac and a Bluetooth bump to v2.1 to v4.0. Both of these upgrades were also seen in the new slim PS4.

The Pro also has an additional 1GB of DDR3 RAM, which will be used for non-gaming apps to free up the faster GDDR5 RAM for gaming performance. 

4K TV Performance

PS4 Pro supports 4K/HDR

Original PS4 just supports HDR

Developers decide how to use the extra power

This is the big one – the main reason it’s worth making the jump from the original hardware to the PS4 Pro. The PS4 Pro supports 4K output, as opposed to the standard PS4’s Full HD 1080p resolution.

When it comes to streaming services such as Netflix this means that the console will be able to play movies and TV shows in their maximum resolution, but unfortunately the lack of an Ultra HD Blu-ray drive means that the console will not be able to play physical 4K media.

The PS4 Pro supports 4K output, as opposed to the standard PS4’s Full HD 1080p resolution

Games are slightly more complicated because it will be up to developers to decide how they want to use the PS4 Pro’s extra muscle, though we’re seeing it bear more fruit the longer the jacked-up console is on the market.

In our review of God of War, we found the PS4 Pro version came with two separate graphics modes: one which favors resolution, displaying the game at checkerboard 2160p (or 4K), and another which favors performance, lowering the resolution to 1080p but displaying at a framerate that’s closer to 60fps (but never actually locking at it).

The one you choose will obviously come down to your personal preference. Camera movement is much, much smoother in performance mode, though the drop in visual detail is noticeable — especially in game, where the level of detail seen at 4K is so high.

Of course, HDR is also available for those with TVs that support the format, and we can say that it definitely adds to the experience, particularly when it comes to lighting and shadows.

Other games such as Days Gone are upscaled to achieve a 4K output, but reports indicate that the upscaling process used is more clever than simply stretching the image over a larger number of pixels. But other games such as Deus Ex: Mankind Divided are said to upscale much less successfully.

The takeaway seems to be that achieving good 4K performance will need developers to be clever about the balance they strike between native rendering resolution and the upscaling technologies used.

Developers to be clever about the balance they strike between native rendering resolution and upscaling technologies used

In summary: the PS4 Pro is not powerful enough to run a game at 4K with all the graphical bells and whistles turned on, but with some compromises the results can be reportedly impressive.

Although HDR support is new with the PS4 Pro, this same functionality is set to come to launch PS4s via a firmware update. Check out our full guide to HDR for exactly what that means for how your games will look.

In terms of loading times, the PS4 Pro offers a small improvement over the stock PS4, but if you’re looking for a boost in loading times, then you’ll see more of an improvement if you upgrade your launch PS4 with an SSD. 

1080p TV Performance

Some games play at higher framerates on PS4 Pro

Although the PS4 Pro is meant mainly as an accompaniment to 4K televisions, the console will also give a graphical boost if you’re playing on a 1080p screen. 

But while some of these enhancements are intentional, such as using supersampling to enhance the amount of detail in a given scene, others are not. 

PS4 Pro will also give a graphical boost if you’re playing on a 1080p screen

The Last Guardian, the much-delayed game from Team Ico, finally launched with numerous framerate issues that were present on both the PS4 at 1080p, and the PS4 Pro at 4K. 

But a performance analysis revealed that these issues almost completely disappear if you force the game to run in 1080p mode on a PS4 Pro by changing the system settings. 

We don’t think this is an intentional feature of the Pro, but if this trend continues in the future it might make the Pro a much more necessary upgrade for 1080p TV owners. 

‘Boost mode’

Frame-rate increases can now also be seen in games that haven’t received a Pro patch.

Introduced in PS4 firmware 4.50, ‘boost mode’ is a feature that allows PS4 games that haven’t received a PS4 Pro patch to receive a performance boost when played on the new console. While the exact improvements aren’t fully understood, a Digital Foundry analysis has unearthed performance boosts of as much as 38%. 

Titles tested included Assassin’s Creed: Unity, Battlefield 4, and Project Cars, all of which saw substantial performance increases when running on the Pro, despite not having a Pro patch available. 

Check out the video below for a more in-depth outline of the benefits. 

PlayStation VR performance

PS4 Pro offers improved PSVR experience

…but it’s not a major difference

Although prior to the PlayStation VR’s release there were rumors circulating that the headset’s performance on launch consoles was going to be ‘terrible’, now that the hardware is out the distinction appears to be much more subtle. 

In fact a recent analysis by Digital Foundry suggests that in some games the difference between PS4 and the PS4 Pro can be a struggle to find.  

Other games appear sharper on the Pro because of how the developers have enabled super-sampling techniques, effectively rendering games at a higher resolution in order to enhance detail levels. 

The differences between the two consoles are too slight to conclusively recommend the Pro on the basis of VR performance alone

In Robinson: The Journey for example, details are much crisper, and textures benefit from a higher level of texture filtering. 

The bottom line with the PlayStation VR is that the differences between the two consoles are too slight to conclusively recommend the Pro on the basis of VR performance alone. 

If this changes in the future as developers get better acquainted with the PS4 Pro then this may change, and we’ll update our thoughts accordingly. 

Conclusion: A substantial upgrade short of a generational leap

The PS4 Pro is undoubtedly a substantial step up from the PS4, but ‘true’ 4K gaming is difficult for it to achieve without compromise.

The biggest physical difference between it and the standard PS4 visually is the addition of an extra layer, but the internals have also been beefed up considerably. The GPU is a great deal faster, and although the CPU is architecturally similar it’s been clocked at a faster speed.

So should you make the upgrade from your existing PS4? The answer largely depends on if you have a 4K TV or plan on upgrading to one. If you are, then the PS4 Pro will present numerous visual benefits. If you aren’t, well, there’s likely isn’t anything on the PS4 Pro that will be worth the extra money, at least not yet.

Source link

[etechwire-blog]

PS4 Pro vs PS4: What's the difference?

New Post has been published on https://www.etechwire.com/ps4-pro-vs-ps4-whats-the-difference/

PS4 Pro vs PS4: What's the difference?

PS4 or PS4 Pro: what really is the difference? If you’re looking to get a new Playstation 4, or looking for an upgrade, you may well be deliberating over the best choice out of these two, admittedly-similar consoles. But while both may play the same library of games, there are a fair few differences under the hood, and many gamers will want the highest-performing machine they can find for playing AAA games like God of War or sampling the best of Playstation VR.

The PS4 Pro is the premium console offering from Sony, but don’t mistake it for a PS5: it’s more a refit than a whole other machine. However, there’s still a lot more going on with the new console than you might think.

(Update: PS4 firmware 4.50 is a pretty big deal for the PS4 Pro. The new ‘Boost mode’ adds a performance boost to all PS4 games, whether or not they’ve received an official PS4 Pro patch. Games will still need the patch to see a resolution increase, but it’s a great addition to see all the same. Check out the full details below.)

So what’s the difference?

The main difference is resolution. Whereas the original PS4 is limited to a maximum of 1080p, the new PS4 Pro can go as high as 2160p – or 4K, as it’s more commonly known. 

The catch (because there’s always a catch isn’t there?) is that games will need to receive a PS4 Pro patch to enable these more detailed resolutions. 

These patches are unfortunate, because as yet only a fraction of the console’s library have them. 

Going forward, all new PS4 games will need to include a ‘Pro Mode’, which will allow them to make the most of the Pro’s enhanced hardware. This pretty much guarantees that there’ll be a lot of Pro content in the future, though right now it’s slim pickings.

We’ve had the chance to experience what the new console is capable of – highly detailed 4K/HDR gameplay, Ultra-HD media streaming from apps like Netflix and the new Pro Mode – but now it’s time to work out how it shapes up to the existing PS4 hardware. 

With Microsoft releasing the Xbox One X, a similar half-step upgrade of its existing console, the PS4 Pro vs PS4 debate is just as relevant today as when the PS4 Pro first released in 2016. As while the Xbox One X pulls ahead of the PS4 Pro in terms of raw power, it does have a big thing missing: Sony exclusives such as Uncharted 4 and Horizon: Zero Dawn.

Price comparison

The Pro offers some rather obvious advantages over the original PS4, but there are still plenty of reasons to go for the latter. Namely, price. Take a look at some of the lowest deals available for Sony’s popular console.

If you decide that a PS4 Pro is more up your alley, you’re in for a treat –especially if you have a new 4K HDR television to play it on. Take a look at the best prices that we’ve found. 

Appearance

PS4 Pro is bigger, but not by much

Sleeker finish on top of the Pro console

The most obvious difference between the original PS4 and the PS4 Pro is the addition of an extra layer onto the console.

While the original PS4 had two layers separated by a gap for the disc drive and two USB ports, the PS4 Pro has three layers.

Thankfully this hasn’t lead to too much of an increase in its dimensions. The original PS4 measured 275.1 x 305.1 x 53.1mm, while the Pro measures 295 x 327 x 55mm. That means it’s slightly bigger, it’s 2cm deeper and 2cm wider, but interestingly it’s more or less the same height.

It’s also half a kilogram heavier, or just over a pound.

Connections

PS4 Pro has an extra USB port

PS4 Pro also has an optical audio port

Original PS4 uses HDMI 1.4, Pro uses HDMI 2.0a

In terms of rear connectors, the PS4 Pro is nearly identical to the standard PS4, aside from the addition of an extra USB 3.0 port – which should be pretty useful if you’re planning on hooking up a PlayStation VR, since the headset takes up a USB port when it’s plugged in. 

An extra USB port is an excellent inclusion, since the PSVR brings back the Move Controllers which each need a USB port to charge. 

Unlike the new slimmer PS4, the PS4 Pro does include an optical audio output on its rear like the original launch PS4.

The final difference between the ports on the back of the console is the HDMI port. While the original PS4 had an HDMI 1.4 port, the PS4 Pro has an HDMI 2.0 port to allow it to output at 4K resolutions (more on that later).

Important to note is that you don’t need to upgrade your HDMI cable to take advantage of 4K, despite what Sony is claiming on its official FAQ. Any HDMI cable that can handle 1080p can do 4K just fine. 

Optical drive

Both systems have Blu-ray drives

Neither are capable of 4K Blu-ray playback

This is a particularly sore spot for Sony’s new system. Despite speculation to the contrary, the PS4 Pro does not include an Ultra HD Blu-ray player. It can play Full HD 1080p Blu-ray discs just the same as the original PS4.

Sony’s decision to omit a Ultra-HD Blu-ray drive from the system is puzzling, considering that Blu-ray support was one of the major boons of the PS3. Now, Sony might be saving that for another console down the road, however, considering that Microsoft’s Xbox One S already has the high-end disc drive, it would’ve benefitted Sony to launch the Pro with one as well.

Internals

PS4 Pro has better GPU performance (4.2 TFLOP vs 1.84)

PS4 Pro has 802.11ac Wi-Fi antenna and Bluetooth 4.0

PS4 Pro has an additional 1GB of DDR3 RAM

The internals are where we see our first major difference from the original PS4.

Both consoles share an AMD Jaguar x86-64 8-core CPU, which has seen a 30% boost in clock-speed from 1.6GHz to 2.1GHz. 

Meanwhile the GPU has seen a much bigger performance increase. Its power has been doubled, and its clock-speed has been boosted from 800MHz to 911MHz.

In total the GPU has jumped from 1.84 TFLOP in the launch PS4 to 4.2 TFLOP in the Pro. This bump is in order to accommodate the new 4K functionality.

The Wi-Fi of the Pro has also seen an upgrade to include 802.11ac and a Bluetooth bump to v2.1 to v4.0. Both of these upgrades were also seen in the new slim PS4.

The Pro also has an additional 1GB of DDR3 RAM, which will be used for non-gaming apps to free up the faster GDDR5 RAM for gaming performance. 

4K TV Performance

PS4 Pro supports 4K/HDR

Original PS4 just supports HDR

Developers decide how to use the extra power

This is the big one – the main reason it’s worth making the jump from the original hardware to the PS4 Pro. The PS4 Pro supports 4K output, as opposed to the standard PS4’s Full HD 1080p resolution.

When it comes to streaming services such as Netflix this means that the console will be able to play movies and TV shows in their maximum resolution, but unfortunately the lack of an Ultra HD Blu-ray drive means that the console will not be able to play physical 4K media.

The PS4 Pro supports 4K output, as opposed to the standard PS4’s Full HD 1080p resolution

Games are slightly more complicated because it will be up to developers to decide how they want to use the PS4 Pro’s extra muscle, though we’re seeing it bear more fruit the longer the jacked-up console is on the market.

In our review of God of War, we found the PS4 Pro version came with two separate graphics modes: one which favors resolution, displaying the game at checkerboard 2160p (or 4K), and another which favors performance, lowering the resolution to 1080p but displaying at a framerate that’s closer to 60fps (but never actually locking at it).

The one you choose will obviously come down to your personal preference. Camera movement is much, much smoother in performance mode, though the drop in visual detail is noticeable — especially in game, where the level of detail seen at 4K is so high.

Of course, HDR is also available for those with TVs that support the format, and we can say that it definitely adds to the experience, particularly when it comes to lighting and shadows.

Other games such as Days Gone are upscaled to achieve a 4K output, but reports indicate that the upscaling process used is more clever than simply stretching the image over a larger number of pixels. But other games such as Deus Ex: Mankind Divided are said to upscale much less successfully.

The takeaway seems to be that achieving good 4K performance will need developers to be clever about the balance they strike between native rendering resolution and the upscaling technologies used.

Developers to be clever about the balance they strike between native rendering resolution and upscaling technologies used

In summary: the PS4 Pro is not powerful enough to run a game at 4K with all the graphical bells and whistles turned on, but with some compromises the results can be reportedly impressive.

Although HDR support is new with the PS4 Pro, this same functionality is set to come to launch PS4s via a firmware update. Check out our full guide to HDR for exactly what that means for how your games will look.

In terms of loading times, the PS4 Pro offers a small improvement over the stock PS4, but if you’re looking for a boost in loading times, then you’ll see more of an improvement if you upgrade your launch PS4 with an SSD. 

1080p TV Performance

Some games play at higher framerates on PS4 Pro

Although the PS4 Pro is meant mainly as an accompaniment to 4K televisions, the console will also give a graphical boost if you’re playing on a 1080p screen. 

But while some of these enhancements are intentional, such as using supersampling to enhance the amount of detail in a given scene, others are not. 

PS4 Pro will also give a graphical boost if you’re playing on a 1080p screen

The Last Guardian, the much-delayed game from Team Ico, finally launched with numerous framerate issues that were present on both the PS4 at 1080p, and the PS4 Pro at 4K. 

But a performance analysis revealed that these issues almost completely disappear if you force the game to run in 1080p mode on a PS4 Pro by changing the system settings. 

We don’t think this is an intentional feature of the Pro, but if this trend continues in the future it might make the Pro a much more necessary upgrade for 1080p TV owners. 

‘Boost mode’

Frame-rate increases can now also be seen in games that haven’t received a Pro patch.

Introduced in PS4 firmware 4.50, ‘boost mode’ is a feature that allows PS4 games that haven’t received a PS4 Pro patch to receive a performance boost when played on the new console. While the exact improvements aren’t fully understood, a Digital Foundry analysis has unearthed performance boosts of as much as 38%. 

Titles tested included Assassin’s Creed: Unity, Battlefield 4, and Project Cars, all of which saw substantial performance increases when running on the Pro, despite not having a Pro patch available. 

Check out the video below for a more in-depth outline of the benefits. 

PlayStation VR performance

PS4 Pro offers improved PSVR experience

…but it’s not a major difference

Although prior to the PlayStation VR’s release there were rumors circulating that the headset’s performance on launch consoles was going to be ‘terrible’, now that the hardware is out the distinction appears to be much more subtle. 

In fact a recent analysis by Digital Foundry suggests that in some games the difference between PS4 and the PS4 Pro can be a struggle to find.  

Other games appear sharper on the Pro because of how the developers have enabled super-sampling techniques, effectively rendering games at a higher resolution in order to enhance detail levels. 

The differences between the two consoles are too slight to conclusively recommend the Pro on the basis of VR performance alone

In Robinson: The Journey for example, details are much crisper, and textures benefit from a higher level of texture filtering. 

The bottom line with the PlayStation VR is that the differences between the two consoles are too slight to conclusively recommend the Pro on the basis of VR performance alone. 

If this changes in the future as developers get better acquainted with the PS4 Pro then this may change, and we’ll update our thoughts accordingly. 

Conclusion: A substantial upgrade short of a generational leap

The PS4 Pro is undoubtedly a substantial step up from the PS4, but ‘true’ 4K gaming is difficult for it to achieve without compromise.

The biggest physical difference between it and the standard PS4 visually is the addition of an extra layer, but the internals have also been beefed up considerably. The GPU is a great deal faster, and although the CPU is architecturally similar it’s been clocked at a faster speed.

So should you make the upgrade from your existing PS4? The answer largely depends on if you have a 4K TV or plan on upgrading to one. If you are, then the PS4 Pro will present numerous visual benefits. If you aren’t, well, there’s likely isn’t anything on the PS4 Pro that will be worth the extra money, at least not yet.

[nedsecondline]

FEBRUARY 5, 2017 THE TRUMP-HITLER COMPARISON. Is there any comparison? Between the way the campaigns...

FEBRUARY 5, 2017

THE TRUMP-HITLER COMPARISON. Is there any comparison? Between the way the campaigns of Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler should have been treated by the media and the culture? The way the media should act now? The problem of normalization?

Because I’d written a book called Explaining Hitler several editors had asked me, during the campaign, to see what could be said on the subject.

Until the morning after the election I had declined them. While Trump’s crusade had at times been malign, as had his vociferous supporters, he and they did not seem bent on genocide. He did not seem bent on anything but hideous, hurtful simplemindedness — a childishly vindictive buffoon trailing racist followers whose existence he had mainstreamed. When I say followers I’m thinking about the perpetrators of violence against women outlined by New York Magazine who punched women in the face and shouted racist slurs at them. Those supporters. These are the people Trump has dragged into the mainstream, and as my friend Michael Hirschorn pointed out, their hatefulness will no longer find the Obama Justice Department standing in their way.

Bad enough, but genocide is almost by definition beyond comparison with “normal” politics and everyday thuggish behavior, and to compare Trump’s feckless racism and compulsive lying was inevitably to trivialize Hitler’s crime and the victims of genocide.

¤

But after the election, things changed. Now Trump and his minions are in the driver’s seat, attempting to pose as respectable participants in American politics, when their views come out of a playbook written in German. Now is the time for a much closer inspection of the tactics and strategy that brought off this spectacular distortion of American values.

What I want to suggest an actual comparison with Hitler that deserves thought. It’s what you might call the secret technique, a kind of rhetorical control that both Hitler and Trump used on their opponents, especially the media. And they’re not joking. If you’d received the threatening words and pictures I did during the campaign (one Tweet simply read “I gas Jews”), as did so many Jewish reporters and people of color, the sick bloodthirsty lust to terrify is unmistakably sincere. The playbook is Mein Kampf.

I came to this conclusion in a roundabout way. The story of Hitler’s relation to the media begins with a strange episode in Hitler’s rise to power, a clash between him and the press that looked like it might contribute to the end of his political career. But alas, it did not. In fact, it set him up for the struggle that would later bring him to power.

It was one of the crucial, almost forgotten incidents in the dark decades before World War II — the November 1923 Munich “Beer Hall Putsch,” Hitler’s violent attempt to take over all of south Germany in preparation for a strike against Berlin.

Hitler and his swelling Nazi party had been threatening a power move for months. Threatening first violence, then alliance with one of the other factions. Hitler was keeping them off balance, promising he’d not use force with one, scheming to use it with another, finally betraying his word to all.

At the very apex of the Beer Hall Putsch, a clash between his militia and Munich’s chief opposition newspaper, the Munich Post, may have changed the course of history, giving evidence that Hitler had the potential for a far more ambitious course of evil than anyone in Germany believed. Only the reporters who had been following Hitler seemed able to imagine it.

On the night of November 8, 1923, amid a clamorous political meeting in the Bürgerbräukellar, a huge echoey beer hall where political meetings were often held, Hitler stood up, fired a pistol into the air, and announced his militia had captured the three top leaders of southern Germany’s Bavarian province and handcuffed them in a back room in the beer hall. The next morning, he declared, his Stormtrooper militia would capture the capitol buildings and then head north to Berlin.

It didn’t happen. That morning there was a firefight on the bridge to the city center that ended with Hitler’s forces having failed to cross that bridge, Hitler flinging himself — or being flung — on the ground amid gunfire in ignominious defeat.

What caused his defeat? Some have suggested (myself among them) it was Hitler’s fateful decision to detach his elite private militia, the forerunner of the SS — the Stosstrupp Hitler — and send them on a mission to trash and pillage the offices of the Munich Post, the newspaper he called “the poison kitchen” (for the slanders about him they were allegedly cooking up).

Trash and pillage they did. I saw a faded newsprint photograph of the after-action damage to the Munich Post — desks and chairs smashed, papers strewn into a chaos of rubble, as if an explosion had gone off inside the building.

By the mid-’90s, when I first saw that picture, the memory of this chief anti-Hitler newspaper during his rise to power from Munich to Berlin had virtually disappeared from history. But while researching my book, I’d found a cache of back issues crumbling away in the basement archive of a Munich library, seemingly untouched for years.

Cumulatively, the stacks of issues told the story of a dozen-year-long struggle between Hitler and the paper, which began soon after the mysterious Austrian-born outsider appeared as a fiery orator and canny organizer on the Munich streets in 1921.

The Munich Post never stopped investigating who Hitler was and what he wanted, and Hitler never stopped hating them for it.

As Hitler sought to ingratiate himself with the city’s rulers (though never giving up the threat of violence), the Post reporters dug into his shadowy background, mocking him mercilessly, exposing internal party splits, revealing the existence of a death squad (“cell G”) that murdered political opponents and was at least as responsible for Hitler’s success as his vaunted oratory.

And in their biggest, most shamefully ignored scoop, on December 9, 1931, the paper found and published a Nazi party document planning a “final solution” for Munich’s Jews — the first Hitlerite use of the word “endlosung” in such a context. Was it a euphemism for extermination? Hitler dissembled, so many could ignore the grim possibility.

The Munich Post lost and Germany came under Nazi rule — but, in a sense, the paper had also won; they were the only ones who had figured out just how sinister Hitler and the Nazis were. I believe Hitler knew this. And so, back in 1923, when Hitler had thrown the opposition into disarray and division, he saw the chance to eliminate the Munich Post. And he took it and tried, though he failed at that, too.

After the 1923 fiasco, Hitler served nine months of a five-year sentence for rebellion and pledged to stay out of politics. But his parliamentary party didn’t quit, and eventually Hitler had demonstrated enough neutral behavior (discounting the murders committed by the Nazi death squads not directly connected to him) that he was allowed to campaign again. Was it a mistake? Had he learned a lesson? As it turned out, Hitler used the tactics of bluff masterfully, at times giving the impression of being a feckless Chaplinesque clown, at other times a sleeping serpent, at others yet a trustworthy statesman. The Weimar establishment didn’t know what to do, so they pretended this was normal. They “normalized” him.

And so they allowed him and his party back onto the electoral lists, the beginning of the end. Democracy destroying itself democratically. By November 1932, his party had become the largest faction in the Reichstag, though not a majority. After that election though, it looked as if he’d passed his peak: his total vote had gone down. It looked like the right-wing parties had been savvy in bringing him in and “normalizing” him, making him a figurehead for their own advancement.

Instead, it was truly the stupidest move made in world politics within the memory of mankind. It took only a few months for the hopes of normalization to be crushed. As Sir Richard Evans, the leading British historian of the period has proven at painstaking length, the Reichstag Fire was not a Hitler plan to excuse a takeover through martial law. It had indeed been the work of a Dutch man, Marinus van der Lubbe. But Hitler, ruthlessly and savagely, took advantage of it, instituting martial law and crushing electoral democracy. There would have been another excuse. Once in power Hitler was going to go on maximizing it until the “final solution.”

And the Munich Post never stopped reporting on this ultimate aim and on Hitler’s use of murder, decrying any attempts to “normalize” the tyrant. They kept fighting until two months after his January takeover. In March 1933, when the Nazis ruled the media and the Post was “legally” shut down. There had been a few other brave journalistic souls — Konrad Heiden, Fritz Gerlich. But swiftly, oh so swiftly, the order of the day became “gleichschaltung” — “realignment,” or forced conformity, savage normalization. Goebbels and other Nazi propagandists made it their crusade to get the German body politic “adjusted” to the new reign of terror. “Gleichschaltung” meant normalize or else.

Hitler’s method was to lie until he got what he wanted, by which point it was too late. At first, he pledged no territorial demands. Then he quietly rolled his tanks into the Rhineland. He had no designs on Czechoslovakia — just the Sudetenland, because so many of its German-born citizens were begging him to help shelter them from persecution. But soon came the absorption of the rest of Czechoslovakia. After Czechoslovakia, he’d be satisfied. Europe could return to normal. Lie!

There is, of course, no comparison with Trump in terms of scale. His biggest policy decisions so far have been to name reprehensible figures to various cabinet posts and to enact dreadful executive orders. But this, too, is a form of destruction. While marchers and the courts have put up a fight after the Muslim ban, each new act, each new lie, accepted by default, seems less outrageous. Let’s call it what it is: defining mendacity down.

And look where it got us. Perhaps we should have seen it — the way Trump’s outrageous conduct and shamelessly lying mouth seemed so ridiculous we wouldn’t have to take him seriously. Until we did.

Give him the harmless attention he seems to crave and he’ll no longer be a nuisance. The whole thing would be childish if it didn’t seem sinister in retrospect. It recalled to me a conversation I had with Alan Bullock (1914-2004), Oxford University historian and author of Hitler: A Study in Tyranny (1952), the first substantive biography of the dictator.

Bullock, then nearing 80, told me how students of Hitler were often misled to focus on his vicious anti-Semitism. In fact, Bullock had initially argued, it was likely he had believed in nothing and just used the Jew-hatred to advance his cause with the nitwit thug segment of the German people. Just as Trump appealed to his nitwit thug racist, anti-Semite followers. Hitler was a “mountebank,” Bullock exclaimed, a con man who played the Jewish card, using it to whip up rowdy enthusiasm and give the impression of a movement. This is the comparison I’d been seeking.

Bullock, as I’ve written, would later change his mind to incorporate the vision of Hitler offered by Hugh Trevor-Roper, who found the anti-Semitic ideology to be primus inter pares in Hitler’s fevered brain. Be that as it may, he saw that this tactic of playing the fool, the Chaplinesque clown, had worked over and over again, worked like a charm. It kept the West off balance. They consistently underestimated him and were divided over his plans (“what does Hitler really want?”). The tactic became irresistible, as repeated always success does.

Few took Hitler seriously, and before anyone knew it, he had gathered up the nations of Europe like playing cards.

Cut to the current election. We had heard allegations that Trump kept Hitler’s speeches by his bedside, but somehow we normalized that. We didn’t take him seriously because of all the outrageous, clownish acts and gaffes we thought would cause him to drop out of the race. Except these gaffes were designed to distract. This was his secret strategy, the essence of his success — you can’t take a stand against Trump because you don’t know where Trump is standing. You can’t find him guilty of evil, you can’t find him at all. And the tactics worked. Trump was not taken seriously, which allowed him to slip by the normal standards for an American candidate. The mountebank won. Again.

Suddenly, after the inconceivable (and, we are now beginning to realize, suspicious) Trump victory, the nation was forced to contend with what it would mean, whether the “alt-right” was a true threat or a joke to be tolerated. Did it matter that Trump had opened up a sewer pipe of racial hatred? Once again, normalization was the buzzword.

And I remembered the Munich Post, defending Weimar Germany. I reflected on how fragile democratic institutions could be in the face of organized hatred. Hitler had been tricky about his plans until he got the position and the power to enact them. Trump had been tricky, neither accepting nor rejecting the endorsement of KKK leader David Duke. David Duke! The KKK! In this century! He claimed he didn’t know who he was. He couldn’t be disqualified because of someone he didn’t know. That’s where we all went wrong, thinking he was stupid and outrageous, not canny and savvy and able to play the media like Paganini. The election demonstrated the weakness of a weak democracy, where basic liberties could be abolished by demagoguery and voter suppression.

And after Trump’s victory I began to follow the debate over how much deference Trump was owed, how much responsibility he had for the hate speech the alt-right morons cheered. Some found solace in the hashtag #notmypresident. David Remnick seemed to have woken the next morning with an especially felicitous gift of disgust, writing: “The fantasy of the normalization of Donald Trump — the idea that a demagogic candidate would somehow be transformed into a statesman of poise and deliberation after his Election Day victory — should now be a distant memory, an illusion shattered.”

He was joined in that spirit of defiance by Teju Cole in The New Times Magazine, Jamelle Bouie in Slate, Masha Gessen in The New York Review of Books, Charles M. Blow in The New York Times, and, most recently, Charles P. Pierce in Esquire.

It looked like a movement was building. What form it would take was unclear.

But now, a couple months later, the momentum is dissolving. The default position is normalization. Should we be content with that? Or should we resist, be it by taking to the streets or simply by “preferring not to,” Bartleby-style?

While sifting through possible courses of action, I remembered something sad — possibly the saddest thing I had ever read: the last few issues of the Munich Post. They had put up a brave front. Somehow, most touchingly, they had continued the serialization of a novel begun before Gotterdammerung, the way a normal newspaper might in normal times. It was a novel by the elusive, pseudonymous B. Traven, called The White Rose. It’s a novel about corporate greed and land-grabbing in Mexico’s oil fields — a text of protest perhaps more relevant to our current struggle than to the struggles of Germany in the 1930s.

I had to search another Munich archive to find the very final issues of the Munich Post, but they were even more dispiriting than I could imagine. The paper went down fighting a lie, fighting Nazi murderers, refusing to normalize the Hitler regime.

A week after Hitler came to power on January 30, 1933, the Munich Post published their regular murder survey under the headline “Nazi Party Hands Dripping with Blood,” enumerating the bloody casualties: 18 dead, 34 wounded in street battles with the SA Stormtroopers.

These are the headlines that followed in daily succession:

“Germany Under the Hitler Regime: Political Murder and Terror”

“Blood Guilt of the Nazi Party”

“Germany Today: No Day Without Death”

“Brutal Terror in the Streets of Munich”

“Outlaws and Murderers in Power”

“People Allow Themselves to Be Intimidated”

The era of normalization had begun everywhere else, but the Munich Post resisted.

The Munich Post lost, yes. Soon their office was closed. Some of the journalists ended up in Dachau, some “disappeared.” But they’d won a victory for truth. A victory over normalization. They never stopped fighting the lies, big and small, and left a record of defiance that was heroic and inspirational. They discovered the truth about “endlosung” before most could have even imagined it. The truth is always worth knowing. Support your local journalist.

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Ron Rosenbaum is the author of The Shakespeare Wars, among other books. LARB published the afterword to his new edition of Explaining Hitler last year.

[bloodcrazed]

BIOGRAPHY

OCTOBER 31ST, 2015.

Brooklyn, New York, a city rich in tourism, just as any of the other 4 boroughs in New York’s were. But in the early morning of the Halloween of 2015, a witch by the name of Magdalena Serra made exposing all supernatural beings living among humans in secret her utmost obsession, even if it meant immediate death. The witch was undeniably powerful, but not to the extent she had wished to be, though she found this out a little too late. Her objective had been to bring all the evil beings to light, but because she wasn’t strong enough, only the supernaturals residing in New York were exposed, and Magdalena, having invested every last drop of sweat and tears on this spell, fell to her death instantaneously once it was finalized. At first, the humans all around NY were naturally horrified and dumbfounded, unsure of how to deal with the monsters running through their very own streets. But what Magdalena had done for them was like removing an invisible blindfold from their eyes; dhampirs and vampires went up in flames under the sunlight, wolves’ and shapeshifters’ fury was tripled, causing unplanned turning in the middle of streets, restaurants. The super-humans and demigods, unable to control their powers, were just about tearing down every one of the 5 boroughs of New York. Banshees screamed their lungs right out their mouths, and the demons began inhabiting every soul hungrily as if the gates of hell had just been breached. Every supernatural was affected differently by the spell, but exposed, nonetheless. Humans were advised to stay home under strict lock-down until the officials came up with a solution, and they knew they needed one fast.

Magdalena’s body was discovered a week later in the Brooklyn forest, and once more, she became mankind’s sole savior. Not only did her spell expose all supernaturals, but it had also trapped all of Brooklyn in an “invisible shield”, or so the state officials called it. In every borough but Brooklyn, all supernaturals had slowly begun to disperse out into the country, running from persecution and exposition and preferring to live in the shadows like they hand for centuries, ultimately returning all boroughs back to safety. In Brooklyn, however, the number of supernaturals had significantly decreased. Piling dead bodies were found at the state borders as they had evidently tried to flee the state like the others had, but the very second they came in contact with the shield, they were instantly killed.  Many still inhabited the city and word spread fast over the shield that was seemingly fatal to all creatures, so eventually, left without a choice, they stopped trying to leave.

JANUARY 1ST, 2017.

The citizens of Brooklyn were smart in their decision that was carried out onto the next 2 years. Instead of losing numerous men and innocent lives trying to tame or kill the monsters, they came to one final conclusion: fight the beasts not, let us cage them instead. Knowing that no supernatural being could leave Brooklyn, state officials evacuated all humans out of Brooklyn in what was a very dangerous fight, but it was done nonetheless. However, not all left. Many of these supernatural beings were doctors, lawyers, highly successful businessmen, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, children, even. And it was because of this that many humans voluntarily decided to stay behind: out of passionate love, or for the very greed for money. Unfortunately for the state of New York, as the years passed, Magdalena’s spell slowly began to weaken. By 2017, all supernaturals were restored back to “sanity”, though they still remained trapped. Authorities had granted them “rights” by then, but these rights were only valid in Brooklyn, though they weren’t as generous with their own kind, ironically. The humans who had willingly decided to stay behind had their rights revoked both in and out of Brooklyn. They would not be held responsible for any deaths, sicknesses, kidnapping, stealing or any other crime or necessity for the mere cause that they felt that anyone who stayed behind or traveled to Brooklyn was by definition, guilty of treason.

The supernaturals had no other choice but to accommodate to permanent residency in Brooklyn, a purgatory they could not escape no matter how hard they tried. But when people think of purgatory, they might associate it with eerie silence that lasted forever, but Brooklyn was anything but silent. The only thing the supernaturals had in common was just that indeed, that they were immortal. But just because these species have been forced to live together, does not mean that they live in peace. Humans and non-humans alike can always feel the tension, feel the desire to break free from this magical prison scratching just under the surface. With the formation of many different and condescending groups of different people and species all throughout the city, there's no telling just what might happen.

CURRENT DAY.

Brooklyn became a newly civilized state again, if you could even call it that. Businesses were back up and running, and successful at that. People were buying homes, starting families, and essentially learning to accept their fate here. Until Magdalena’s spell wore off for good, there was no chance that anyone was getting out. The only people with free access in and out of the city were the humans, and as the months passed, many brave souls were seen moving back to Brooklyn to live with the monsters. So until then, they were left to with no choice but to make Brooklyn their home rather than hell. But not everyone had this same mindset. It wasn’t rare to see opposing species terrorizing each other, eager for the highest rank on the hierarchy. And it also wasn’t rare for humans to start falling into crime, once enough populated Brooklyn.

But something was off. Something was definitely not right, and everyone felt it. The supernaturals and humans could spend day and night trying to figure out who was going around murdering members in both parties, but they never got anywhere. There were no leads. No suspects. Fingers were being pointed out of desperation. The dead bodies turning up sporadically all over the city all had one thing in common though: strange markings over their bodies. Could all of this  be part of the aftereffects of Magdalena’s spell? Or was there a third enemy living among them, an enemy that would force both the nonliving and living in Brooklyn to unite?

Join us and come find out for yourself.