Baking Shenanigans

Date: 8/4/2020

I accidentally took a nap & woke up an hour later remembering most of a dream. I was some kind of newspaper writer, and I probably wrote for the entertainment or sports section or something. I got an assignment to cover a high-stakes baking competition show that would take place over several weeks/months. At least some of the contestants on this baking show were angels & demons & other similar beings. I don't think all of them were celestial or infernal, but at least the 2 I interacted with most in the dream were definitely an angel & a demon -- in disguise, of course. Very poorly disguised, since literally the whole show crew knew what they were, but still technically in disguise. The angel was named Aziraphale, but he was nothing like the Aziraphale in any version of "Good Omens" (where my subconscious got the name from), & my knowledge of that Aziraphale was totally gone while I was in the dream. Instead of being likable in any way, this angel was a horribly proud, pompous person. He believed that only 2 things were of any importance in the whole universe: himself & the God he served. Beneath that, everything & everyone else might as well have been ants crawling on dirt. Insignificant, & he wasn't afraid to call any of us that straight to our faces. He was like a villain in a cartoon. I don't remember the demon's name, I think it was something like Mars maybe. He wasn't much better. He always had a scheme, & would often literally chuckle maniacally for no apparent reason. He was manipulative, but without actually being charming. He misdirected you & terrified you in subtle ways, until he suddenly has what he wanted. Nobody trusted him, yet he fooled most of us there in some way at least once. Aziraphale was on the baking show to do something for his God, tho he'd never tell anyone what -- not even Mars, & the pair had a relationship like 2 high-powered CEOs who have to keep each other informed so their partnering companies will stay afloat but don't have to be friends beyond that. They had no secrets between each other, including their hatred for each other. But Aziraphale still didn't tell Mars his goals. On the other hand, Mars frequently reminded himself under his breath that he wanted to find "something very good" to bring back to his own bosses for some reason, so literally everyone knew his goals. This is actually where the dog comes in. Someone on the crew of the show called herself my sister. She wasn't, & we'd never met before I was assigned to this story, but she called herself that & I ended up calling her that too. She had a dog, who happened to be a Great Dane, who followed her literally everywhere. He always wore a blue pen behind his ear for some reason. Now that I'm awake, I'm not sure how it stayed in place. I don't remember his name, either, but I'll call him Dane. Sister & Dane we're inseparable, which meant that the more I got to know Sister the more I saw of Dane. One day, at the height of the competition, we were getting ready for another day of filming & writing about what was filmed. We noticed Dane acting weird. He seemed really insistent about something. After awhile, frustrated, he took over Sister's arms with his mind & had her use his pen to write out a note we could read. He spoke to us thru his pen. We realized how smart he was & how special his powers were right away. So when he said that Aziraphale & Mars were close to finding what they were looking for, we knew they were probably looking for him. Naturally, we immediately decided to protect him. We'd do what we could to throw them off the trail, & act as human shields if either Aziraphale or Mars tried to take Dane away to show their God or other demons or whatever. When we were discussing this, I clearly remember that flipped off Aziraphale's name in the note, then quickly apologized since Sister had thrown away the note & it looked like I was trying to flip her off. I explained that Aziraphale was a self-important asshole & I hated him, which she understood. But the competition was in full swing. So we had to make them think that the prize at the end of the competition was what they needed to get for their bosses. I don't remember all of what we did to make this happen, but I do remember that it involved a lot of complicated planning. By the time things were in place, the next stage of the competition was happening. Contestants had to make cream puffs in really absurd locations. I was in charge of convincing Aziraphale to go after the prize instead of Dane, since I was more emotionally invested in redirecting him than Mars. Aziraphale was making cream puffs in a hot air balloon. From here, I remember a lot of fighting between Aziraphale & Mars for the first time since the show had started. Mars kept teleporting into the basket of the hot air balloon to have fistfights with Aziraphale, & I had to pop in from time to time (I could also teleport, somehow) to nudge their ambitions away from Dane while they fought. I often ate their leftover cream puffs (the ones that wouldn't be judged for the show, probably) while doing this. The feeling of going upside-down when a hot air balloon is swung impossibly in a circle at an impossible speed while having several cream puffs in your mouth is... not a great one. I ended up teleporting back to the ground to be sick while Sister took a shift. I think we were making progress, but the dream cut to some kind of ad about how fulfilling it is to make stew every day for years as your career & then I woke up. I hope we kept Dane safe, in the end.