#Tl.

[loserarc]

steve doesn’t remember leaving the lights on. He usually checks on his way out the door, then double-checks in the rearview mirror. Usually, he isn’t this tired.

Someone else’s vest hangs over his shoulder, already dirtied and bloodied but saved from the ground regardless. Kneeling down at the front stoop, his fingers search under the welcome mat for a spare key that’s– yes, definitely still there. And it doesn’t matter. If it’s an intruder, Steve thinks, it’s a thorough one. That’s the thought he settles for as he walks inside. 

The TV is on, too. Though the news anchor speaks in a murmur while he kicks his sneakers off, he knows she’s either talking about the earthquake (rescues have quietly turned into recovery missions) or the local cult of Satanists (that vest has been sitting in his car for days). He opens his mouth, ready to announce that he’s here and doesn’t want any trouble—it’s getting dark, this house is big and empty, he wouldn’t blame them—but by then it’s too late. The shadow emerging from the living room has a face, mascara-smudged and pink. She stops beneath the tall archway, letting the space stand as a final barrier between her and him.

“You’re home,” Steve says. In case she wasn’t aware.

Her nails click against the wall, the last of her nervous energy escaping through her fingertips. They’ve been painted a deeper pink to match her pantsuit. 

“Mom? Are you okay?”

She swipes a puff of blonde back as if assuring her hands of their steadiness. Once they’re convinced, so is the rest of her. She finally nods, her lips quivering into a tight smile. “I should be asking you that.” Still, she struggles to tame the waver in her voice. “I called and called all morning and no one picked up. I even tried the video store, but obviously…” She bobs her head toward the end of the foyer. Connecting the dots, then: maybe some story displaying his strip mall’s shuttered windows? 

The news has ended just in time for the Jeopardy! theme to bounce through austere halls. Seven-thirty. 

“What’s this?” Time to cross that invisible boundary.

He refolds the vest and lets it rest under his other arm. Somehow, the lie comes to him just as easily. “My friend’s. He left it in my car.” 

She glances again before her eyes narrow on him. They travel upwards, landing just short of his face. “Are you sure you’re alright?” It’s getting a little too warm for turtlenecks, said only with a hum. There’s something else that needs to be said. “You know I hate dropping in on you like this, but with everything going on here and the stupid expo… I didn’t know what to do.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“No, baby, don’t be.” Her hand finds his back this time, the heel of her palm rubbing knit into a still-fresh welt. If that hadn’t made him jump, her gasp would have. “What? What is it?”

A wince melts into laughter as he squirms past her. “Slept wrong. It’s nothing.” He backs up until his foot finds the bottom step.

“You should take something for that. Poor thing. Your father’s the same way. Rather just walk it off.” Slender fingers rake through her hair, uncertain again. “I never understood it.”

Steve looks down at his hands. The denim cut-off has found its way into his grip, thumb running along a broken seam where softer t-shirt fabric has started to curl away from one corner. Now that he’s noticed it, he keeps his palm pressed there. Good enough.

He’s careful not to follow that line of thought any further, though. Then he’d have to wonder: good enough for who?

“So Dad’s still in Chicago?” He can hear his own voice, but it’s miles away from himself. “Is that… okay?” 

“Well,” she breathes, a hand to one hip as the other leans against the banister, “it was. You should know he appreciates you ‘holding down the fort,’ though.’” Her half-hearted imitation ends in an airy chuckle. Steve, letting this script play out, forces a laugh through his nose. Then she can go on, disregarding the weight one little “though” had carried. “Both of us do,” she continues. “I was expecting the house to be in a total state. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing when I drove through town, I really couldn’t! It’s like a war scene.”

He’s glancing over his shoulder when the silence catches him. “It’s really bad.”

“It’s terrible.” She tuts. “Which reminds me, I was wondering if you’ve heard from the Hagans at all. Tommy must be worried sick at school.”

He rubs the side of his face, forcing feeling into a tired numbness. It’s hard to remember now; either he forgot to tell her when that should-be lifelong friendship blew up in his face, or she chose not to believe it had. “They’re okay.” He hasn’t heard the name come up. These days, no news is good news.

“Thank God.”

Steve nods. A studio audience cheers from the living room.

“I should have been here.”

“You are now. And it’s fine. I’m—”

“No, no. It’s not. I’m sure the board of supervisors is having an absolute field day with me gone.” She waves a dismissive hand. “It’s the timing of it. I just know they’ve already convinced themselves I ran off. I can hear it now.”

Funny, he thinks. All he can hear is his thumbnail scratching denim.  

“Would you listen to me ramble?” She lets out a tremble of a sigh. “Why don’t you just catch me up in the morning, honey?”

“You sure?”

Although his mother nods, smiling softly, Steve is slow to climb up the stairs. She hasn’t disappeared into the flicker-glow of the living room yet. Instead she lingers in the foyer, arms crossed and eyes locked on an abstract painting.

He’s plucking dried-up mud off Dio’s name now, feet moving forward without him. Screw it. He stops at the balcony. “Hey, Mom?” 

She doesn’t look at him. “Hm?”

“I’m sorry.”

No answer. She knows what he means.

hi, honey, it’s me. Just checking in! I’ll try again before we head out for breakfast, okay? Thanks. Bye-bye.

Hi, Steve honey. Checking in again. Call me when you can, alright? 

I’m getting a little worried— 

The receiver is clicked back into its place on his nightstand, unheard messages waiting to be deleted another day. Tonight, there’s nothing left to do but wait for sleep. So Steve waits. 

The pool casts a false daylight through his window. Bleary eyes wander from the popcorn ceiling to the criss-cross wallpaper, over the little blue waves that mimic the real thing. If he listens closely, he can hear the hum of the heater as it steams the crisp night air.

There’s nothing unfamiliar about this, though it doesn’t feel like his childhood bedroom until someone else is home. Usually, he’ll come and go, fix a coffee and sit in his car, whatever he has to do to ignore the sting of those slow-healing nerves until he can bother Robin with his whining. But his mother would only hear him creaking his way downstairs, her empty room briefly illuminated by the glow of headlights. Someone else was home, wasn’t he? What went wrong to make him leave? 

So he can’t. He keeps waiting, the waves swaying above him, his foot hanging over the side of his bed as if he still has the better option. 

Lying down like this, he can feel the water—or maybe just the impression of it—stuck in his chest. Probably radioactive, right? Some bodiless voice tells him he could scare off death with a good laugh. Did it work?

Guess we’ll know if I wake up.

Keep me posted.

Sure thing.

Anyway…

He finds his mother at the breakfast table the next morning. 

“You never told me where you were yesterday,” she says.

Steve shakes the last of the cereal dust into his bowl. He’s not hungry. It’s probably stale. But he slept, so he feels fine enough to make an exhibit out of it. A splash of milk should do it. He sits himself across from her and smiles. “Just hanging out with friends. Driving around. Are you gonna eat?”

Elbows to the table, she rests her chin over folded hands, curlers jostling around her face. No. She’s still tired. Proving to be, at least. 

“Yeah,” he goes on, spoon stirring, “it’s stupid. I wish I thought to check if you called. But I just figured, you know—”

“No, I know.” Frowning, she gives her head another subtle shake. “It isn’t as if I call every day.”

“Right.”

“Truth be told, I was ready to come home.”

Steve nods along as she reasons. The story hasn’t changed since last night, then. She’s probably preparing herself for her rounds already, considering where she should show her face first: the municipal center or the school? The hospital? Door to door? She’s been in one place too long as it is. 

Turning to the window, her sleepy eyes flutter shut. She waits a moment, soaking in the sunlight, before taking a breath. “How are your friends?”

“Huh?” 

“Your friends. I don’t even think I know who they are anymore, so hard to keep up with you kids. Ha.” It’s not really a laugh. He can hear the warmth leaving her voice as she faces him again. “How old do I sound? Good lord.”

“Nah, it’s not—” He purses his lips, dragging soggy bits of cereal down the sides of his bowl. Then he laughs, just as brittle. “It’s fair. We just, uh...”

“Steve, honey. I need you to tell me the truth now,” she says, leaning forward. The shift is so sudden that  his heart leaps into his throat. “Are you helping that boy hide?”

Now he watches her. She’s watching him, her eyebrows angling concern. It looks as strange on her as it had yesterday. As strange as what caused it: the vest that had been propped under his arm. Where had he left it?

Shit. What had he done with that?

“I found it in the laundry room this morning,” she answers. He doesn’t have time to register that she had answered perfect silence. That this isn’t where he left it at all. “It’s the same shirt from the posters, isn’t it? Sewn onto the back.”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

“Steven!”

“He’s dead.” 

steve finds himself in the blue again, his mind barely settling into reality before he’s pushed himself to his feet. His hand finds the cold of the floor, searching under his bed frame until his fingertips brush against something soft. And because that isn’t enough, he pulls the battle vest into his lap and examines it over crossed legs, front to back, as if it could have changed overnight. As if he’d ever be that careless. 

“Shit,” he chuckles, lake water rattling in his chest as he does. But there’s a feeling that he’s admitted to something horrific. He hasn’t said it out loud. It comes back to him as he refolds and returns it—blood spatter and all—to its temporary home underneath his bed. 

He didn’t know Eddie all that well. Doesn’t, to be optimistic. He doesn’t know him well yet, which makes this whole thing worse. There’s the obvious, of course: what right does he have to miss him at all, even in private? How could he, hesitant to even call it “missing him,” feel entitled to more time? 

Obvious only to him, maybe, are the few things he does know. The first: that Eddie dove in after his sorry ass. He didn’t have to. The second: that in spite of the circumstances, he arrived like a missing piece of the Hawkins puzzle. If the town was always as harsh as they knew it to be, then Eddie was its much-needed counterbalance. The people in his life knew that, too. And the third—looming in the backseat, hiding under his bed—Steve can’t keep that vest. He shouldn’t have taken it to begin with.

Even now, he knows there must be something else to it. A fourth reason keeps him pinned down, hugging his legs to his chest just to watch the projection dance across his walls. He’s been here before. Really been here, sinking to the bottom of the pool until all he could feel was weight. And all he could hear was the buzz of the heater, and all he could do was wait for the trigger point. Some instinct beyond himself would force him to surface, happy as could be that this wasn’t the end for him. It was just a new record.

And then there was yesterday. “Close one,” he mumbles to no one in particular. Though he does say it, which means he can give it more credibility than that dream. This early in the morning, anyway, the logic tracks. 

So does this: Steve sliding himself toward the nightstand, reaching for the lamp. Once he’s filled the room with light, he rests his brow over bare knees for a second, his face still beading a cold sweat. “Blaming you if I cough up a tadpole, man.” Now and only now, waiting for a sign seems to make sense, too. 

He leans his head back against the edge of the mattress, wincing into a comfortable position. “I, uh– went to see Max before that,” he says, voice kept low. He measures against the electric hum to be safe. “She’s doing a little better. Tried to talk this time, so that was awesome. It’s weird, though.”

Weirder than him talking to a lamp? She’d have a field day. He clears his throat to keep from laughing at himself. 

“Just, like… I’ll joke about something and expect her to roll her eyes at me. But yeah. God. That kid’s tough, man. Seriously.” 

What else? Steve scrubs at his face until the sleep is gone from his eyes. “Henderson said he saw Wayne? I guess he’s checked in a couple times now. I think he’s worried he’s annoying him or something, but like… I don’t know. Obviously I don’t know your uncle, but I just told him he probably appreciates it. I mean, he hasn’t told him to stop, right? So if you’re worried about him being alone, don’t be. It’s alright. Or it will be. And, um…” What else?

It isn’t until he gets a taste of metal that he realizes he’s been chewing on the inside of his lip. His eye stings. At least there’s something he can blame. He waits for it to pass, then takes a breath: just enough to say what he means. 

When he wakes up to a flicker, it’s only the silver daylight breaking through the trees. His mother is on the phone when he finally shuffles into the kitchen, her giggling anything but mirthless. He managed to remember the turtleneck sweater, but he’s already regretting his secrecy. The kitchen is hot. It’s threatening a headache. 

 “Ah, John, here he is.” No wonder, he thinks. They must have patched things up. She holds the phone out to him, uncurling the cord from her fingers. “Here. Morning, sweetie.”

He only blinks, watching her as she moves onto the next task. She’s dressed all in grey this time, grinning from ear to ear as she clears the remnants of her lunch from the table. Finally, he greets the breath waiting on the line. More of an afterthought.

“Steve-O.” He’s putting on a voice. Still in conference mode. “How’ve you been, champ?”

“Eh.” 

“Getting a late start today?”

Steve pulls the receiver away from his face, almost laughing, almost scoffing. “Yeah.”

“Listen.” There’s a rustling as his father switches ears, a click as he lights a cigarette. “Your mother’s telling me I should be worried.”

“Okay.”

“About you.”

He glances once more at the human blur bouncing around the kitchen, then quietly backs into the hallway. The telephone cord stretches from its coil. “Why?”

“Exactly what I said. Now, what I think you need is something to keep you busy. Some kind of routine.”

But he’s only half-listening. The tick-tick of a wall clock has met him in the dark of the hall. His eyes try to find a better place for this, where the phone can still reach. 

“Steven?”

“What?”

“What do you say?”

All he can do is retreat into the kitchen. He ignores the eyes on him as he does, thinking back a few seconds. Worried. Busy. Routine. “Sorry. Are you telling me to get a job?”

There’s a beat. Steve imagines him at his hotel window, flicking ashes. “No,” he says. “I’m offering you one. I’ll set you up in Indy while the Hawkins store is… Well, closed. You’ll obviously want to be working toward a diploma, so nothing full-time. But it would be a good stepping stone for you. A bit of a risk for me–”

“So why?”

“Why?” he laughs. “Why what? You are my son, aren’t you?”

“That’s funny.” There’s no time to stop himself. He’s already broken ground. “When did you remember? Before or after the town split in half?”

Across the room, his mother’s breath catches in her throat.

“Oh, didn’t you hear? There was this earthquake.” He digs himself deeper, dodging her hand as she lunges for the phone. “I’m fine. A little bored, but hey! Better a bored kid than a dead–”

“Steven,” she hisses, “that’s enough!”

“You know what?” Steve tells him. “Go to hell.” 

She had wrangled the receiver out of his grip and slammed it back onto the hook before that part could be heard. By the time she decides to follow, he’s already halfway up the stairs. A new line has been drawn between them.

“What’s gotten into you?” she pleads over the sound of his footsteps. “I thought you’d be thrilled!”

And maybe he should have been. To be fair to her, it wasn’t that long ago that he would have been. No future in sight; not even the one he’d been guaranteed. In a world that made any sense at all, he would have taken what he could get. 

Steve turns to face her. He holds his breath as he lowers himself to sit on the top step, not bothering to hide the pain. It’s sharp in his voice. “You talked him into it, didn’t you?” 

Under the tall arch of the foyer, he sees her face soften into a frown. Her arms cross slowly, almost awkwardly over her chest. She looks at him until she’s looking through him. 

Then she walks away. “Overwhelmed.” The explanation echoes down the hall. When she returns, she’s shrugging on a grey blazer, picking her keys from the rack. “We’re all a little overwhelmed, honey.” She digs through her purse then checks her hair in her compact mirror, checks on his reflection over her shoulder.

Steve nods, lips pursing into a smile. “Where are you going?”

“They’re meeting in ten minutes. I know, awful timing. You still need to–”

“Catch you up?”

She stalls in the open door. “Please,” she smiles back. “Tonight, okay? I want to understand.”

He imagines telling her, maybe sitting her down in the living room like families do on TV. Max is in the hospital, but you don’t know her. It was hard to see her. Hard to see Lucas. Erica. Robin is okay. I wish she were here right now. Dustin, Wayne, they’re alright. Or going to be. You don’t know them either. Eddie died. I let him. What else? “Sure.” 

She doesn’t disappear right away. Just one more thing: “I’ll let him know you’re sorry. Don’t you even worry.”

That’s funny, too, he wants to tell her. For the first time in a while, he isn’t worried at all. In fact, as the door finally clicks shut, he laughs. 

“Jesus Christ.” Carefully, he pulls himself upright, only to laugh until his ribs ache. “Good show, right?”

Of course, as always, Steve is willing to believe that he had no audience. He knows he’s pretending there’s some kind of science behind what he’s been doing: talking so as not to abandon, so as not to kill. But who knows? 

One night—another night alone—Dustin will call. He’ll tell him they found Eddie. A part of him always knew it would end this way. Who was he kidding? He’ll start to apologize, but his apologies will go unheard. He won’t know why right away. Soon enough, buried in the background of Dustin’s sudden panic, a deeper voice will mumble something. Steve won’t be able to hear anything else. 

Hurrying out the door, he’ll remember bandages and cold beer. He’ll remember the first thing Eddie said to him and he’ll remember the last. He won’t remember the damn vest. He’ll have to bring that back to him next time.

#hello this is very rough but i think i would like to be done w it for now u_u #just some vignettes abt that weird stretch of time after st4 xoxoxo #tl.

[thriev]

main verse timeline.

(early s1) stefan & zach have damon locked in the cellar in the boarding house. after being starved of blood for a few days, damon manages to summon caroline to the boarding house to free him using their mental link (??? it's never really explained how tf he does this). since it's not actual compulsion, caroline is not fully in damon's control, so she's able to break a leg off of a chair before making her way over to him. and since damon's not as strong as he usually is, right before he attempts to feed from her, caroline manages to catch him off guard and gets the stake into his chest, killing him :). by the time zach gets down there, damon's already dead, and caroline is gone.

stefan eventually does find out caroline killed him, but knowing what his brother had done to her, he doesn't (fully) hold it against her. at least he's not mad enough to try and get back at her.

vicki never gets turned (therefore doesn't have to die), lexi doesn't die either, and andie star is saved from becoming another one of damon's victims <3.

anna kidnaps bonlena like she does originally but this time she uses them to blackmail stefan into working for her and finding the grimoire. he finds it, and they work together (+ sheila) to open up the tomb. luckily stefan doesn't actually want katherine free though, so he agrees that so long as she only gets her mother out of the tomb, he'll do what she says. they open the tomb, stefan discovers katherine isn't inside, anna frees her mother, and sheila ends up burning up all the other vampires.

pearl begins plotting to take over mf like in canon (though w/o the other tomb vampires). john gil.bert shows up to try and stop her, but he's unsuccessful in killing her (though he gets close). after that, pearl decides it'll be safer for her and anna outside of mf, at least while john's there, so they leave for a bit. anna will absolutely want to stay and stick with jeremy, but she like just got her mother back, and knowing that john almost killed pearl she decides to leave with her (but only for a while. once uncle john's gone she can return and janna can be cute again or smth).

blah blah gil.bert device shenanigans. stefan gets outed as a vampire but escapes before john can kill him. tyler crashes the car with caroline in it and caroline ends up in the hospital.

bon convinces stefan to give his blood to care when she's in the hospital. stefan does. katherine smothers caroline with a pillow later, killing her. caroline wakes up in transition and becomes a vampire <333.

caroline ends up killing that boy at the carnival. stefan and elena find her there. cue iconic stero/line bathroom scene.

(mason also gets to live now yay?)

since mason isn't dead, jules and her gang have no reason to show up and caroline does not need to get put in a cage and tortured for several hours! rose also doesn't get bit by her and gets to live.

maro.line break up. the mar.tins don't die.

caroline & mason get captured as sacrifices for the ritual. caroline manages to get free of her restraints (basically she starts crushing the bones in her hand until she can slip them out of her shackles), is about to free mason from his, until the witch guarding them returns and tries to kill her. that's when tyler shows up (he came to rescue them), killing the witch to keep him from killing caroline (triggering his werewolf curse in the process).

we can now commence with the for.wood bonding <333 my children <333.

since damon is already dead and doesn't get bit by tyler, stefan doesn't have to go on his little ripper road trip with klaus. caroline and tyler officially start dating <3333 but carol finds out, knocks caroline out, and tells bill about her.

caroline gets tortured by bill for a bit before liz and tyler come to rescue her.

klaus returns to mf after trying (and failing) to start his hybrid army. tyler gets turned into one. caroline decides she has officially had it with mystic fa.lls and decides to leave, hoping tyler will go with her. he says no since he's sired to klaus (not that they know yet), so caroline leaves on her own.

she tells bonnie and elena and her mother what she's doing and where she's going ofc, but she keeps the communication kind of minimal tbh. she's trying to Discover herself. she finishes high school, gets her diploma, then goes to college somewhere new, somewhere interesting.

she gives up her dreams of broadcast journalism (since she's a vampire now and showing up on tv would just be inviting trouble) and decides to pursue interior design instead. it was a kind of split second decision, but she doesn't regret it. she has so much fun in college, in fact, that after she gets her degree she decides to keep at it. studying anything and everything that she can, for as long as she wants (criminology, just for the heck of it. because she thinks it might be useful, given the kind of stuff she and her friends get into. maybe even chemical engineering, because people seem to think she can't do it and whenever someone tells me i can’t do something, i prove them wrong.)

caroline's got a long road ahead of her, and she's going to spend it doing whatever the fuck she wants <3.

#tl. #finally got around to it lol #by killing off damon i've managed to keep a bunch of women and poc alive. Hm. Interesting

[xuperbia]

Dice Collei que cuando le llevaras a ver a Amber, Cyno

-  —A  su  edad  solo  debe  existir  una  sola  cosa  en  su  cabeza,  homicidio  estudiar  —  -los  niños  de  ahora  ni  calentar  un  pan  pita  saben  y  quieren  andar  de  novios.

#POR QUÉ TODO LO QUE TOCO ES UN MEME #awanta hasta que empiece con las dad jokes #it's gonna be the end of yall(?) #que aprenda a calentar un pan pita primero y luego ya anda de noviera #tl.

[naturaltalent-a]

◜⠀ 𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐓𝐒 ⠀⠀⠀ —⠀⠀ ،،̲    INCORRECT QUOTES      .

WHEN THE INCORRECT QUOTES ARE A LITTLE TOO IN CHARACTER .   scenario based in the heavy plot me and @rattledthorns got going on .   BONUS : 

       ⟋      quote : ri/c/k & mo/r/ty  ,    𝐝𝐧𝐢 𝐢𝐟 𝐰𝐞’𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐦𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐬 ,  

#rattledthorns #◜⠀ visage ⠀⠀⠀ —⠀⠀ ،،̲ a new religion that’ll bring you to your knees ﹗ ◞ #tl.

[naomistares]

i wanted to draw falin again after yesterday's ep 😭

#my whole tl was those 3 gifs #sat and watched on loop everytime #thank you #art #artists on tumblr #dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #falin touden #dunmeshi spoilers #dunmeshi #dungeon meshi spoilers

[ciearcab]

gouache falin

#dungeon meshi #dungeon meshi spoilers #falin touden #chimera falin #traditional art #illustration #gouache #i haven’t touched my paints in so long! i made this a challenge for myself to work with all these reds and get something cool out of it #ignore how messy my edges turned out - my tape roll is like 7 years old and barely sticks anymore #unsure if i should tag for nudity to be safe but also i’ve seen her shirtless more times on my tl this week then anything else ever so.

[nouverx]

I feel the room swayin'

While the band's playin'

One of our old favourite songs from way back when 🎵

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel fanart #hazbin alastor #hazbin rosie #alastor #alastor x rosie #radiorose #my art #digital art #autodesk sketchbook #I've fallen into radiorose and I can't get up they captivate me #ALSO I AM SO SO PROUD OF THE SECOND DRAWING U DON'T EVEN KNOW #I like this one so so much probably one of my favourite drawing ever I'm not even kidding #this idea was from a tweet that popped on my tl saying Rosie should dip Alastor the same way he diped her in Ready For This #I got struck with inspiration and needed to draw it out

[joycrispy]

One thing I love about Crowley --never stated, but consistently shown-- is that he is, at heart, an engineer.

I have a few different things to say about that. Let's unpack them.

As the Unnamed Angel, we see his designs for the Pillars of Creation are millions of pages long, comprised of cramped text, footnotes, diagrams, schematics, etc. It's very...Renaissance polymath, in the way it implies a particular intersection of artist and inventor.

Also: in the naked romanticism with which he views his stars.

We already knew he made stars, but in s2 we learn that he did NOT sculpt each of them by hand. He designed a nebula ("a star factory," he says) that will form several thousand young stars and proto-planets, and all --aside from getting the 'factory' running-- without him lifting a finger. We also learn that these young stars and proto-planets stand in contrast to those made by other angels, which are going to come 'pre-aged.'

...I'm reminded of Hastur and Ligur's approach to temptations. Damning one human soul at a time, devoting singular attention to it over the course of years or decades, and how that stands in contrast to Crowley's reliance on, quote, 'knock-on effects.'

Ligur: It's not exactly...craftsmanship. Crowley: Head office don't seem to mind. They love me down there.

Hm.

I'm also reminded of the M25.

The M25 may not be as grand as a nebula (sentences you only say in GOmens fandom...), but LIKE his nebula it's an intricate, self-sustaining engine that does Crowley's work for him, many times over. Again.

That's some pretty neat characterization --and so is the indication towards Crowley's disinterest in victimizing anyone tempting individual people. It takes a considerable amount of planning and effort (and creeping about in wellies), but in accordance with his design the M25 generates a constant stream of low-grade evil on a gigantic scale.

Cumulatively gigantic, that is. Individually? Negligible.

But no other demon understands human nature well enough to parse that one million ticked-off motorists are not, in any meaningful way, actually equivalent to one dictator, or one mass-murderer, or even one little influential regressive. That's the trick of it. Crowley gets Hell's approval (which he NEEDS to survive, and to maintain the degree of freedom he's eked out for himself), and at the same time ensures that any actual ~Evil Influence~ is spread nice and thin.

It's some clever machinery. And he knows it, too:

The Unnamed Angel and Crowley are both proud of their ideas.

(musings on professional pride, Leonardo da Vinci, the crank handle, and 'the point to which Crowley loves Aziraphale' under the cut)

In the 1970's Crowley gives a presentation on the M25, projector and all, to a room full of increasingly impatient demons. Maybe the presentation was work-ordered; the 'can I hear a WAHOO?' definitely wasn't.

Before the Beginning, the Unnamed Angel can barely contain his excitement about his nebula. Aziraphale manages a baffled-but-polite, "....That's nice... :)"

11 years ago, Hastur and Ligur want to 'tell the deeds of the day,' and Crowley smiles to himself because (according to the script-book) he knows he has 'the best one.'

(Naturally, his 'deed' has nothing to do with tempting anybody, and everything to do with setting up a human-powered Rube-Goldberg machine of petty annoyance. Oodles of 'Evil' generated; very little harm done.)

Hastur and Ligur don't get it, of course. That's also consistent.

Nobody ever knows what the hell he's talking about.

It didn't make it on-screen, but, in both the novel AND the script-book, Crowley was friends with Leonardo da Vinci. The quintessential Renaissance polymath. That's where he got his drawing of the Mona Lisa --they're getting very drunk together, and Crowley picks up the 'most beautiful' of the preliminary sketches. He wants to buy it. Leonardo agrees almost off-the-cuff, very casual, because they're friends, and because he has bigger fish to fry than haggling over a doodle:

He goes, "Now, explain this helicopter thingie again, will you?" Because he's an engineer, too.

(It is 1519 at the latest, in this scene. Why the FUCK would Crowley know about helicopters, and be able to explain them, comprehensively, to Leonardo da Vinci?

...Well. I choose to believe he got bored one day and worked it out. Look, if you know how to build a nebula, you can probably handle aerodynamics. And anyway, I think it's telling that this is his idea of shooting the shit. 'A drunken mind speaks a sober heart,' and all. He probably babbled about Aziraphale long enough to make poor Leo sick)

Apart from Aziraphale, Leonardo da Vinci is the only person Crowley has any keepsakes or mementos of.

Think about that, though. Aziraphale's bookshop is bursting with letters, paintings, busts, and personalized signatures memorializing all the humans he's known and befriended over 6000 years (indeed: Aziraphale has living human friends up and down Whickber Street. He's part of a community).

Crowley doesn't have any of that. It's just the stone albatross from the Church (for pining), the infamous gay sex statue (for spicy pining), the houseplants (for roleplaying his deepest trauma over and over, as one does), and this one piece of artwork, inscribed, "To my friend Anthony from your friend Leo da V."

To me, at least, that suggests a level of attachment that seems to be rare for Crowley.

...Maybe he liked having someone to talk shop with? Someone who was interested? Someone engaged enough to ask questions when they didn't immediately understand?

...Anyway.

There's also the matter of the crank handle.

This thing:

This is one of the subtler changes from the book. In the book, Crowley knows Satan is coming and, desperate, arms himself with a tire iron. It's the best he can do. He's not Aziraphale; he wasn't made to wield a flaming sword.

The show, IMO, improves on this considerably. Now he, like Aziraphale, gets to face annihilation with what he was made for in his hand. And it's not a weapon, not even an improvised one like the tire iron.

He made stars with it.

[both gifs by @fuckyeahgoodomens]

If you Google 'crank handle,' you'll get variations on this:

Crank handles have been around for centuries. Consisting of a mechanical arm that's connected to a perpendicular rotating shaft, they are designed to convert circular motion into rotary or reciprocating motion.

Which is to say they're one of the 'simple machines,' like a lever or a pulley; the bread and butter of engineering. You'll also get a list of uses for a crank handle, archaic and modern. Among them: cranking up the engine of an old-fashioned car... say, a 1933 Bentley. That's what Crowley has been using his for, lately. But he's had it since he was an angel and he's still, it seems, very capable of it's angelic applications.

Stopping time. For instance.

(This is conjecture on my part, but, I like to imagine that Crowley has the ability to stop time for the same reason I can --and should-- unplug my computer before I perform maintenance on it. Time and Space are a matched set, after all, and in his designs in particular, one feeds into the other.)

I know everyone has already said this, but: I REALLY LIKE that when he needs to channel the heights of his power, he does so not with a weapon but with a tool. Practically with a little handheld metaphor for ingenuity. One from long-lost days when he made beautiful things.

(And he loved it. Still loves it --he incorporated that metaphor into the Bentley, didn't he?)

Let Aziraphale rock up to the apocalypse with a weapon: he has his own compelling thematic reasons to do exactly that. Crowley's story is different, and fighting isn't the only way to express defiance. And if you've been condemned as a demon and assumed to be destructive by your very nature, what better way than this?

He made stars. They didn't manage to take that from him.

Neither Crowley nor Aziraphale are fighters, really --they have no intention of fighting in any war. They'll annoy everyone until there's no war to fight in, for a start. But between the two, if one must be, then that one is Aziraphale. Principality of the Earth, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, Wielder of the Flaming Sword... all that stuff. Even if he'd prefer not to, it's very clear that Aziraphale can rise to the occasion, if he must.

Crowley was never that kind of angel. He wasn't a Principality. He doesn't have a sword.

...And yet.

It's Crowley who protects. He's the one who paces, who stands guard, who circles Aziraphale and glares out at the world, just daring anyone else to come near.

In light of everything else I've said here, I think that's interesting.

Obviously part of it is that Aziraphale enjoys it and, you know, good for him. He's living his best life, no doubt no doubt no doubt. But what about Crowley? What's driving that behavior, really?

Have you heard the phrase, 'loved to the point of invention'? Well, what if 'the point of invention' was where you started? What if where you end up involves glaring out at the world, just daring anyone else to come near? What is that, in relation to the bright-eyed thing you used to be?

What do we name the point to which Crowley loves Aziraphale?

...Thinking about how an excitable angel with three million pages of star design he wants to tell you all about...becomes a guard dog. Is all.

#good omens #ineffable husbands #aziracrow #Crowley #Aziraphale #good omens 2 #good omens meta #unfortunately I do not have trains of thought #only long meandering strolls of thought #sorry about it #anyway tl;dr Crowley is a nerd #also I have a strange emotional attachment to the idea of 1500's Crowley... #...facedown in a pile of Mona Lisa sketches; drunkenly info-dumping about Aziraphale #and Da Vinci is just like. 'Ahhhh mio amico Antonio. You fucking simp.'

[foxinys]

JEONGIN at ASEA Red Carpet 2024

#stray kids #i.n #bystay #createskz #gifs #by us #ri #all over tl it's like i couldn't not gif him

[xo-romiiarts]

rkgk

#I got those cats like 5 times on my tl I had to 😭 #geto suguru #satosugu #gojo satoru #my art #fan art

[anya-chalotra]

#he finally got to kiss his fella

#tedlassoedit #ted lasso #tedlassogif #usergiu #usernastya #userchelsea #usernik #tuserhan #useraurore #underbetelgeuse #userbbelcher #chewieblog #tvedit #lgbtedit #colin hughes #michael tl #colin x michael #mine* #gifs* #10k #ted lasso spoilers

[yellowistheraddest]

are they wrong?????

no.

#sorry zorobros your fat tiddied man is gay for this canonically dude had my jaw drop when he started acting like a kid about this #one piece #fanart #myellowart #strawhat pirates #zoro #roronoa zoro #zosan #<- implied so sad no kissing men on your tl today #f slur #that too ig

[ariminiria]

remember to do your part by giving Amazon's Rings of Power show the Morbius treatment

#hey there Blaze victim! check the notes for extra context #tl;dr: egregious disrespect for the source material and -more importantly- workers rights abuses #also theres a chance that we could kill amazon streaming if this flops so #happy morbing! #rings of power #its morbin time #every single 'ooh new first look' fille me with unbridled rage #anti rings of power #lord of the rings #tolkien #lotr #it's morbin time

[beebopurr]

Bracelet bros

#rottmnt #my art #wip #for my good tl #rottmnt leo #rottmnt mikey

[stil-lindigo]

when worlds collide

#no idea if this is funny to anyone else but me #i havent even watched either of these shows yet #the duality of pedro pascal is just funny to me #so much range and he still keeps getting cast as the put upon father figure #anyway #i have plans with my bestie to watch tlou this weekend #itll be the first time ive ever engaged with tlou like fully #not just perceiving spoilers on the tl #its gonna be great <3 #tlou #tlou show #tlou ellie #joel miller #the mandalorian #stillindigo art

[fdelopera]

Yo Gentiles! Looks like I'm going to need to give some of you a crash course on what antisemitic language looks like, because I've been seeing entirely too much of it from some of you here on Tumblr.

Now, I think it's time for a Jewish history lesson, because I've been seeing way too many Nazi-related conspiracy theories going around. If you hear contradictions to the basic information that I am about to share (i.e., if you hear someone saying that the Jewish people are "a race that originated in Europe"), it is likely that you are hearing a white supremacist, anti-Jewish conspiracy theory.

So, here's the basics of Jewish history. Jews are indigenous to the Levant have been there for thousands of years. The Levantine people that Jews descended from have been in that area of the Levant since the Bronze Age. Jews as a distinct people have been there since the Late Bronze Age. Before it was Palestine it was the Kingdom of Judah, then Judea, and then Judaea, and that is literally where we are from. The word Jew means "a person from the Kingdom of Judah." The Romans renamed the area Syria-Palaestina (which they borrowed from the Greek name Palestina) in the 2nd century CE after destroying the Second Temple in Jerusalem and leading another campaign to try to eradicate the Jewish people (guess what, we're still here, motherfuckers).

And even after the Romans tried to annihilate us, even after they scattered many of us into European diaspora, many Jews came back, again and again over the ages, and there have nearly always been Jewish communities in the region throughout history.

And if you come for me or try to dispute any of this history with white supremacist bullshit, I am a Jew who has studied way more Jewish history than you. And as politely as possible, you can take your white supremacist conspiracy theories and fuck off into the sun.

Okay, with all that out of the way, let's get into it!

Gloves are coming off, because this is just a sampling of the Nazi dogwhistles I've been seeing here on Tumblr about the Jewish civilians who were tortured, murdered, and worse:

- If you say shit like, "The Jews got what they deserved"...

GUESS WHAT? You're talking like a white supremacist, and you need to fucking check yourself.

- And if, on the other hand, you say shit like, "The reports were probably overblown. I think those were paid actors. I don't think those Jews were murdered. No Jewish children were killed. No Jewish bodies were desecrated" blahblahblah...

GUESS WHAT? You get to sit with the Nazis at their table for lunch.

- If you tell Jews "go back to Europe where you came from"...

GUESS WHAT? Not only are you telling the descendants of Jewish refugees to go back to the Spanish Inquisition, the Russian pogroms, and the Nazi gas chambers, as I explained in this post, but you are also repeating a white supremacist conspiracy theory about the origins of European Jews.

Jews are a Levantine people from the area of the Middle East currently called Israel (formerly called the Kingdom of Judah, and then Judea). While there was some emigration to Europe during the late Roman Republic and the early days of the Roman Empire, the first mass migration of Jews to Europe was a forced migration. Gentiles from the Roman Empire dragged us there as captives after 70 CE, the year Rome destroyed the Second Temple.

- And if you're telling yourself that there are "good Jews" and "bad Jews," and those Jewish civilians were "bad Jews," so they deserved to be tortured and killed...

GUESS WHAT? You're spouting white supremacist ideology.

Antisemitism takes a long time to deprogram.

A lot of gentiles grow up with anti-Jewish ideology that they have never questioned.

And a lot of Christians are kept ignorant about Jewish history because preachers and priests fear it would make Christians question the many inaccuracies in the Bible.

But the first step in noticing antisemitic beliefs is to notice when you start singling people out *because* they are Jewish.

And I have been seeing some of you gleefully celebrating the murder of Jewish civilians *because* they are Jewish.

And that is antisemitism.

That is one step closer to the next generation of Jews getting shoved into the gas chambers. And there are only 16 million of us left in the entire world. We're 0.2% of the world's population. And we cannot afford another Holocaust.

And if your response to me saying that is, "Well, those Jews deserve it."

Guess what. You are making it easier for Nazis and white supremacists to spread hatred and commit acts of violence against Jewish people. And you will have to live with that blood on your conscience.

So...

If you are a gentile, and you see other gentiles repeating these kinds of white supremacist dogwhistles about Jewish people, here's how you can help:

1. MOST IMPORTANTLY: Help them direct their focus away from attacking random Jewish people online and towards helping Palestinians.

Actions that people can take right now are contributing to verified charities and relief organizations that help the people of Gaza. Some organizations that are verified by CharityNavigator.org and CharityWatch.org are:

Anera (92% rating on Charity Navigator)

Palestine Children's Relief Fund (97% rating on Charity Navigator)

Doctors Without Borders (98% on Charity Navigator)

2. Call that shit out. Tell people that they're being antisemitic, and explain that Jew-hatred is dangerous to Jewish people. Antisemitism gets Jews attacked and it gets Jews killed. In the US, many synagogues require round the clock security to protect against white supremacists who want to murder Jews. In Pittsburgh, my old home town, a group of Nazis from north of the city planned the murder of Jewish congregants at Tree of Life Synagogue, and so far only one of them (the gunman) has been arrested and convicted of the murders. The others are still at large.

3. Explain to them that it is antisemitic to celebrate someone's death *because* they're Jewish. ALSO, it is antisemitic to blame a random Jewish person for the actions of ANY government, whether that be the Israeli Government or the US Government.

4. Explain to people that they're not going to solve this conflict by posting antisemitic statements and memes online. All they will do is alienate the Jewish people in their lives and make those Jews feel scared and unsafe. And they will contribute to this current wave of antisemitism.

Antisemitic hatred doesn't help Palestinians. All it does is put Jewish people around the world in danger.

#tl;dr if you celebrate the murder of jews *because* they are jews you are an antisemite - end of story #just fyi - i will be monitoring the comments so if anyone posts anything antisemitic i will delete your comment and block you #antisemitism tw #jumblr