#i know everyone and their mother is giffing this scene but like. i also had to

[vidavalor]

The *Original* Original Sin Theory or... why Aziraphale's "I forgive you"s really mean "forgive me" and just why he wants Crowley's absolution...

Will this break your heart in a good way and make the end of S2 hurt less? more? both? idk let's find out...

I want to talk about what the Before the Beginning scene does to the Eden scene and what all that suggests about Aziraphale and Crowley's relationship... because it might be enough to upend what we think this relationship is quite a bit, at least from Aziraphale's POV, if it goes in the direction that I think they are hinting at in S3, which I'm basing off of where they took it in S2 in these scenes.

This also contains an analysis of That Scene from 2.06 that ties into lots of other scenes and some other meta related to the show and it's a bit long-- like, the mother of all metas-- but there are pretty gifs and I brought snacks? Just letting you know it's a long post but tuck in with some tea if you're in the mood and thanks for reading. :)

Under the big cutty thing...

Before we get started, a couple of quick warnings: I curse a bit in here. It's in the show itself but just letting you know it's here a bit, too. I also mention *very* briefly suicide ideation in the characters and also very briefly (one sentence) Satan's mind-control of Crowley in S1 in a way that might be sensitive for a sexual assault survivor. There is general mention of religious trauma and abusive relationships (not Crowley & Aziraphale's relationship) all over this. If you are okay with the show, you should be more than fine reading this but just wanted to let you know up front. If you're okay with that, read on...

So, the Before the Beginning scene contains a twist, in that we learn that pre-Fall Crowley is naive to Heaven while Aziraphale is the one who is wary of it. This is especially interesting because, best we can tell, no angel has Fallen yet. There aren't *explicit* consequences for asking questions yet, as Crowley doesn't think it could get him into trouble to do so... but *Aziraphale* does. Heaven in S1 and S2 is shown to be basically a fascist state full of bullies jockeying for power where the ones on top dole out all sorts of abuses to maintain a sense of order among the rank and file. We see the emotional and even physical abuse they dole out to Aziraphale and how little they tolerate any sort of dissent, even from an archangel, based on what they ultimately do when Gabriel doesn't want to do arma-bloody-geddon anymore. Heaven is basically The Kremlin. Toe out of line and they'll toss you off a high-rise while telling everyone how sad it is that you recently had a spell of depression and heart troubles as a way of scaring everyone else into submission, right? What's surprising to us is that Aziraphale knows this *absolutely* Before the Beginning and he's terrified on Crowley's behalf, since this place functions as a kind of mafia state.

This implies something really kind of dark which is that Aziraphale knows enough to know how to toe a party line and keep quiet about any doubts he has. He knows how to survive in a way that then-innocent Crowley did not. He tries to tell Crowley that questioning things is going to get him angel-killed but Crowley has a faith in God that's different than Aziraphale's was even before the Earth was fully created. Crowley believed in Her more than Aziraphale does. He doesn't think anything will happen to him. Aziraphale knows what will and this implies knowledge of the abuse of the system and it completely changes our perspective of Aziraphale throughout the rest of the series. We often think of him as either willfully naive or just desperately optimistic regarding Heaven's goodness but, in reality, he's neither of those things. He's something else, entirely. His actions are not expressing naivete or desperate optimism or anything else.

They are expressions of guilt.

And the Eden scene tells us why he has that guilt.

The Eden scene introduces us to Crowley and Aziraphale and the series itself and it has Crowley posit the central question of the show regarding the nature of angels and demons:

Objectively, when you watch this scene, you think this is about the tempting of Eve and the flaming sword. It is... but it's also not *just* about that. Because Crowley and Aziraphale are watching Adam & Eve venture off beyond the Garden of Eden in this scene. They're still within view so the flaming sword situation happened a matter of minutes earlier. Yet, when Crowley posits that central question of which one of them actually did the good thing and which did the bad thing, Aziraphale reveals that it wouldn't be funny at all if what Crowley is saying (that Aziraphale actually did the bad thing) is true. He's distressed about it and so Crowley, somewhat dryly, reassures him that he's an angel so he couldn't have done the wrong thing. (Crowley, of course, being a literal former angel punished for doing the wrong thing lol and that being the joke but also in there is also the layer of Crowley genuinely liking Aziraphale and trying to tell him that it's all okay and meaning it.) Aziraphale is relieved and this is the key bit here-- he says oh good "because it's been bothering me."

The tone of this is that this central question of whether or not he did wrong or right by Crowley and whether or not Crowley was wrong or right in his actions *has been bothering* Aziraphale and he phrases it in a way that implies he's been losing angelic sleep (so to speak) about it for a little while now. If this was *just about Adam and Eve* then Aziraphale's reaction here makes absolutely no sense because the camera also then cuts in their conversation to in front of Crowley and Aziraphale *to show us Adam and Eve still visible in the near-distance* fighting off the lion with the flaming sword. They literally *just left* so how could Aziraphale be all in knots for awhile now over whether or not he made the wrong call? He's not. You can argue that his decision here in Eden to help Adam and Eve by giving them his flaming sword-- by standing up and doing something in the face of God to help out other beings he secretly thinks might have been treated unfairly-- *is a direct response to what he failed to do back in Before the Beginning*...

... which was to stand up for Crowley.

Meaning: Aziraphale doesn't need to see Heaven's files to find out what happened to Crowley when Crowley fell because he was there. S3 is going to be about preventing the Second Coming and so plot allusions to the crucification (which had its own Crowley & Aziraphale scene in S1) will likely abound. Aziraphale was there when Lucifer and The Gang were tossed out of Heaven. To be fair to Aziraphale, there is basically nothing he could have done to prevent this and the best possible situation is that he didn't even have the chance to. The worst possible situation is that he's literally Judas and sold Crowley out, out of fear of being tossed out of Heaven himself. I tend to think it's more that he just didn't stand up and say anything in support of Crowley to prevent himself from being seen as on the side of the eventual demons. Still, just as Crowley thinks the punishment for Adam and Eve was harsh, Aziraphale thought that asking questions and being curious wasn't enough to send Lucifer and everyone around him to Hell to be damned for all of eternity but it caused an obvious existential crisis in him that he still struggles to totally resolve.

If he disagreed with the decision to cast out the suggestion box-happy angels, he was as "bad" as they were. If he agreed with the decision, he was condemning them and that didn't seem angelic, either. How to be a good angel, which is the only thing he had ever tried to be or knew how to be? He did what he thought must be right-- to follow what the other, more powerful angels said the word of God was-- and if it was Her will, then it must be what was right, even if it was *extremely difficult* to see how this lovebug here was really an evil, demonic creature of Hell...

Not to mention that Aziraphale was in love with WhateverHeWasCalledPre-Crawly!Crowley. (We will just call him "Crowley" for this whole meta, because that is the name he chose for himself.) And maybe Angel!Crowley went after the more glamorous, daring guys. Heaven honestly seems like both a fascist state and high school at once (is there really a difference? lol). Crowley describes how he wound up falling in S1 as that he "hung out with the wrong crowd" and Aziraphale in Before the Beginning honestly seems like he's been flying around watching Crowley make stars for ages, trying to work up the nerve to or find an opportunity to introduce himself to the beautiful hot cool arty science-y guy who barely looks at him when his other option for a view are nebulas... or Benedict Cumberbatch's Lucifer/Satan, whose "stroke of demonic genius, dahling" bit in S1 and dark assault on his fave Crowley while Crowley was driving had a real "Angel!Crowley went for the bad boy who were so bad pre-Fall that they wound up fucking Satan afterwards and friend-zoned angels like Aziraphale" vibes. Alternatively, maybe he didn't totally? Before the Beginning seems to be the first time they met and maybe after that, Crowley and Aziraphale became close. It's just that Crowley canonically also wound up sitting at the cool kids' table because they were the only ones questioning things and he wound up damned for eternity for it and Aziraphale?

Aziraphale blames himself for it.

He has blamed himself for Crowley's Fall for six thousand years.

When they speak in Eden, Aziraphale is being confronted for the first time with what has come of his nebula-joyous, freshly baked blueberry muffin of an angel. He calls himself "Crawly" now-- or that's the name he's been given-- because who he was is dead. His eyes are yellow. He's now a snake. He's maybe a bit sarcastic, a bit dry, and a lot more guarded and aloof but Aziraphale sees flickers of Angel!Crowley in there. He's *kind* to Aziraphale. He's still inquisitive, in spite of it being what damned him to Hell. Aziraphale, God help him, is still wildly into him and, ugh, maybe even *more* so, in spite of everything.

And 'everything', for Aziraphale, includes Crowley being a demon being Aziraphale's fault.

They don't talk about it. Ever.

They don't talk about it because Aziraphale thinks that Crowley doesn't remember. Crowley's memory loss of a lot of his time pre-Fall is canon in S2-- something we, the audience, will need to understand the whole picture when/if we end up getting this revelation in S3 of Crowley's Fall and that Aziraphale feels he's at least partially responsible. What's even harder for Aziraphale is that because Crowley doesn't remember his time as an angel, he doesn't remember their full history together. He doesn't remember how they met and protecting Aziraphale from the first celestial shower and all the times they chatted after that and if they were in love back then, Crowley doesn't remember it. Eden then becomes, to Crowley, the first time they meet... but then look at how while Aziraphale seems to think that Crowley doesn't know him while Aziraphale knows Crowley-- the moment that he pauses so Crowley can introduce himself-- *Crowley* seems a little bemused. Why?

Because what Aziraphale has failed to consider is that the one memory that the demons are allowed to keep, most likely, is their Fall, which means that if Aziraphale was there when Crowley fell, Crowley actually *does* remember him. At minimum, he remembers Aziraphale being there and looking stricken by what was happening so even if he can't remember more than that, he knows he's safe with Aziraphale and that Aziraphale cared about him, which would explain why he risked going to talk to with him on the wall in Eden. He knows they were friends and that Aziraphale is good and he can trust him. It's also theoretically possible that if Crowley remembers his Fall and if Aziraphale was there, it's a trigger to him being able to remember all of his and Aziraphale's time before Crowley fell. Aziraphale might not know this and because these two idiots do not know how to talk-- and especially don't talk about this-- Crowley hasn't told him. In part because Crowley can't go back and he doesn't want them to dwell on Angel!Crowley when Crowley is who he is and if that's a demon, it's a demon, and the whole system can go fuck itself anyway, as far as Crowley's concerned.

Aziraphale, though, is still back on "it's my fault". He thinks he literally took goodness from the world; that he participated in the murder of his friend and the love of his life. He has never. In six. thousand. years. lol. told Crowley that he feels like this because he still thinks that Crowley doesn't remember Aziraphale betraying him and he is terrified that if he told Crowley he did-- if he told him that he was responsible, in part, for his Fall-- that Crowley would hate him and Crowley is Aziraphale's only friend in the universe and Aziraphale is madly in love with him. He couldn't bear the loss of him. He can handle their occasional spats and disagreements, knowing that Crowley always comes back, but this? If Crowley knew that his Fall was Aziraphale's fault? Aziraphale thinks Crowley wouldn't come back from that and he'd never see him again.

In reality? Crowley either already knows this and has the whole time or suspects it or if he found it out, would forgive Aziraphale for it. If he knows, he already has. His counter-argument is, like, what were you supposed to do to save me, exactly, angel? You alone versus all the hierarchy of Heaven and God Herself? I'm *glad* you didn't do something stupid and get yourself tossed into a pit of boiling sulphur. You don't deserve that.

Thing is, though, because they've never had this conversation because they DO NOT TALK lol, Aziraphale thinks he *does* deserve that. But look at what's happened since he made the decision not to save Crowley from falling...

...nothing.

Nothing has happened to Aziraphale. He didn't fall for it himself. He didn't fall for betraying the angel he loved and he wonders every. single. day. why he didn't and the only thing he can come up with is that he must have done the right thing. *It must be* that Crowley did the bad thing and Aziraphale did the good one because Crowley was damned to Hell for all of eternity and Aziraphale is still an angel of Heaven, six thousand years later. It's not for Aziraphale to question God. Her will is ineffable. It's ineffable because he cannot begin to understand how any of this can possibly be just and that just keeps happening over and over and over and over throughout the years to come in every situation he and Crowley find themselves in, from Job to The Flood to Wee Morag and Elspeth to Arma-bloody-geddon, right?

Aziraphale begins to lose count of how many times he's gone up against God at this point. Gives away his flaming sword to Adam and Eve. Saves as many as he could during The Flood-- *with* Crowley. (You know they did.) Lies to Gabriel's face in the eyes of God to save Job and Sitis' children... and learning that Falling was political, really, in the process. Nothing happened to Aziraphale for Job's kids. He suffered no consequence for lying to Heaven and God because Crowley was willing to lie for him-- to protect him from Falling, where Aziraphale couldn't protect Crowley himself ages before-- and nothing happened. Falling, suddenly, didn't seem totally God-ordained it it could be tossed aside by something as simple as having a demon just choose not to toss you to Satan. Crowley didn't take him to Hell because he didn't feel like Aziraphale belonged there. It wound up all entirely within Crowley's control, which then made Aziraphale begin to question if God was even really behind the Fall of Lucifer and the Gang or if it wasn't just the thugs in charge of Heaven who decided to toss them out... thoughts he was terrified to think and didn't dare voice aloud, at least not then.

In another era, Aziraphale and Crowley stood there together to witness the torture and murder of Jesus Christ in the name of God, in a parallel to the Fall. What happened to Jesus? He was betrayed by his closest friend, then tortured and murdered by those in the government who thought he posed a threat to social order. Heaven as Pontius Pilate. Aziraphale as a kind of Judas, in Aziraphale's mind, anyway.

Jesus as Crowley.

Time goes on and he and The Demon Crowley form friendship in their own right, regardless of what Crowley might remember from before his Fall. They form their Arrangement off of that and Aziraphale learns even more that, often, no one is really paying attention to what they do. That no one seems to notice if Crowley performs an angelic miracle or if Aziraphale performs what has become termed a 'demonic miracle'... because, really, *they're the same*, though that's not something Aziraphale can fully admit. He cannot allow himself to believe that demons *are angels* because if there's nothing different between demons and angels than Aziraphale doesn't know anything at all.

Anything at all... He doesn't know what being an angel *is* and it's what he supposedly is so it means he doesn't know who or what he is, really.

He doesn't know what God wants or if he truly believes in Her.

He doesn't know what the purpose of all of this is-- why Crowley had to suffer, why demons in general have to, why the *humans* do. Why it all has to be destroyed eventually. To what end?

Aziraphale has the same questions Crowley does and sometimes, late at night, often a little drunk, he'll dare to ask them with Crowley, and every morning that he still wakes up and sobers up and finds himself still an angel when Crowley Fell for so much less than Aziraphale has ever thought or done, he wonders just *why?*

Why is he still an angel when he, really, is no different from Crowley? Why Crowley is damned? Punished for all of eternity for curiosity and innovation and imagination, while Aziraphale is still an angel, doomed to only have until the clock runs out on Armageddon before losing him for the rest of fucking *eternity* but, until then, stuck suffering watching him suffer while remaining an angel? Is being an angel at this point, really, his punishment for failing the apparently foul fiend he adores?

Does Aziraphale ever have any answers to these questions? Good God, no lol. He's six thousand years into this and he's in the same spot as Amnesiac!ArchangelFuckingGabriel in 2.01:

...would be okay if you could just be one near particular person?

Of course Aziraphale knows what this feels like. Of course. We know he does. And that's why he hasn't been able to make a real move in six thousand years-- because it's his fault, as far as he's concerned.

Crowley's damnation is his fault. Crowley cannot really love him, or couldn't if he knew. Not because he's a demon, though Aziraphale might have thought that at one point but he definitely was cured of it by events in 1941. The more time that goes by, the more Aziraphale knows that Crowley loves him-- that he's *in* love with him-- and the worse it all gets for Aziraphale because every day that he hasn't told Crowley that he didn't prevent him from Falling is another day within the last *six thousand years* of them falling in love and the betrayal seems to get worse and worse to Aziraphale. The time to have this conversation was on the wall in Eden and it still hasn't happened. Still, over time, he starts to realize that Crowley, if ever knew, would forgive him.

Because his Crowley has the kindest of hearts. He really does, and that wasn't taken from him when he Fell and Aziraphale finds every opportunity he can to delight in seeing that and making Crowley reveal it.

It goes against everything Aziraphale is supposed to believe.

Demons are not supposed to be good-- if they were, they wouldn't have Fallen. Yet, Aziraphale knows Crowley is. He never has truly believed that Crowley isn't-- even when he could have, at least at the start. He worried, maybe, that he had helped create a monster out of the most lovely being he'd ever known but Crowley just kept proving him wrong about that, time and time again. *Crowley* doesn't believe it about himself, really, because that's his own trauma from his Fall but Aziraphale believes it about him and that's often good enough for Crowley.

But, really, this is why they still haven't gotten together in six thousand years. This is why Aziraphale seems like he can never get beyond "I'm an angel and you're a demon", no matter what Crowley does or how he proves that there are shades of gray and also, that the entire system is bullshit. It is not that Aziraphale doesn't *know* that it's bullshit-- it's that if he admits that it is, if he stops believing in Heaven (even if he doesn't stop believing in God), then he's left with nothing but the crushing weight of guilt that he has for all the pain that Crowley has been through.

If he tells himself that Crowley Fell *for a reason* and that he (Aziraphale) was *right* to not interfere, to not try to thwart God, even if it would have likely failed, just on principle, to stand up for his friend... then Aziraphale doesn't have to deal with the fact that he made what he really considers to be a colossal mistake and that it has caused the continued pain and torture and eternal damnation of the being he considers his soulmate...

...which is why everytime that pain comes to the surface in something Crowley says or does, Aziraphale *cannot handle it at all whatsoever* and reverts to You'reADemonI'mAnAngel!Mode.

Example: Crowley's religious trauma on display in their bandstand argument:

Crowley owns this, even if he's still traumatized by it. He's saying it sarcastically, making a joke on a song Aziraphale probably barely knows, if he knows at all ("Unforgettable"-- Nat King Cole). Aziraphale *aches* at Crowley saying this-- because it reminds him that it's partially his own fault. And he can't. Do. Anything. About. It.

He's an all-powerful *angel* here but he can't change this for Crowley. He can't stop his suffering some six thousand years after his Fall. He's looking at sexy goth Crowley here and he's thinking about curly-haired, beaming, ball of light! Crowley and that they are *the same person* and Aziraphale *does* know that. He knows it and he loves him passionately and desperately and he is one of the most powerful beings ever in existence and he's standing there looking at the man-shaped-being he adores talking about how he still aches from the betrayal of his fellow angels and his mother God and *there is no way for Aziraphale to fix it* when he can mend broken bones and heal the sick and let their be light! all over the place. He can do proper magic and still, he cannot take away Crowley's pain.

This is Aziraphale's Hell. He didn't Fall but he's been in Hell anyway.

So when Crowley's religious trauma and pain comes out, usually in an argument like in the bandstand scene, Aziraphale does the only thing he thinks he *can* do, right? He's an angel. Still. Somehow. He's an angel and there must be some reason for that and an angel is not a demon-- an angel is a purer being, a healer-- and so he says "I forgive you". He doesn't mean it to be patronizing, even if it is. ("I am a *great deal* holier than thou," as he told Crowley at one point and that was the point, right?) He is trying to say "I am still of Heaven and if it's absolution you need, I can give it to you."

He is trying to say: You are not unforgivable to me.

The real lyric of the song Crowley parodies in the bandstand is what Aziraphale means, whether he knows that song or not...

Unforgettable/That's what you are...

*Crowley*, though, doesn't know about Aziraphale's inner turmoil because *heavy sigh* FFS TALK, YOU IDIOTS *breathes* lol, so *he* hears:

I still think I am better than you and you are Fallen, so you're not worthy of me. I can't love you, not the way you want. I love all beings because I'm an angel and I you know I'm in love with you but I can't *allow* myself to be because it goes against the nature of an angel and I've only done eleven thousand things that should have made me Fall over the years but letting myself be in love with you is the rubicon I won't cross, apparently...

Crowley knows by the time they're having the bandstand argument enough about Aziraphale's general religious trauma (not necessarily about how it pertains to Crowley's Fall but about it in general) to know that he spits out hateful garbage when he feels cornered and how to just call it bullshit and move on. ("I don't even like you."/"You doooo.") But he understandably walks away when Aziraphale pushes him away past a point he can handle-- and Aziraphale knows how to do that. He does it *intentionally.* The "I forgive you" is sadness because it's all he has to offer Crowley but he also knows it'll piss Crowley off enough to end the argument, so he says it intentionally to get Crowley to go away. In this scene (which parallels the end of S2 quite a bit, as many have noticed), Aziraphale is trying to deal with it all on his own, right?

He knows where the antichrist is. He's just not telling Crowley yet. He's trying to deal with it to keep him safe. He's doing it because he thinks he should-- that maybe, when it's something of this level of importance, that his job should be as an angel first, above his side with Crowley. (It's also worth mentioning here that Aziraphale is straight up terrified of Falling, not even just for being damned to Hell but because then, if he's no longer in Heaven, he has exactly zero power to even *try* to protect Crowley.) At the end of S2? With The Metatron?

Aziraphale does the same thing as with the antichrist for a time in S1, really.

The beginning of S2 shows us that Aziraphale has known that Heaven is North Korea since Before the Beginning so now marry that with its last scenes and see the arc that connects them-- Aziraphale does what he does out of guilt over what happened to Crowley to *protect* Crowley. He didn't want to do any of it without Crowley and when The Metatron finally offers that carrot, Aziraphale is suspicious as all hell (pardon the pun) and here we have this moment where part of him *wants* this to all be real, right?

Times change and sometimes, your parents who traumatized the living fuck out of you and didn't approve of your boyfriend, grow the hell up a bit and try to repent and mend fences. Maybe the trust is broken but maybe it can be healed and *as an angel*, Aziraphale is a being of goodness and hope and optimism. He's pure of heart, as Crowley put it to Nina. He *wants* that to be the case... but he also knows it likely is not.

Still... they can't run. There's nowhere that Heaven won't find them. It's no life for them-- no life for Crowley, in Aziraphale's mind, no matter how many times Crowley tries to get him to run away with him. "We can go off together!" begs Crowley, over and over, and Aziraphale's only really ever found that Crowley will only slither off if he's ticked off enough and only "I forgive you" ever really does that enough to work lol. He *means* I love you endlessly but you know this is impossible, you bloody maddening, gorgeous serpent! Will you stop reminding me of what we could have when it can never happen?! but that's not exactly how Crowley's taking it.

In the end, to Aziraphale, Aziraphale is an angel and Crowley is a demon and they are doomed to spend eternity apart and Aziraphale thinks he has no one to blame, really, but himself. If he had somehow saved Crowley six thousand years ago-- or had somehow been brave enough to stand up for him and Fallen alongside him-- they could have been together forever.

But he wasn't then and now The Metatron is here and it's time for Aziraphale to go back to Heaven and he knows, as he sits there drinking coffee with the being whose posse sent Crowley in a free fall into a pit of boiling sulphur, that Crowley will never, ever, ever, EVER go back to Heaven.

But he also knows that Heaven is here to collect Aziraphale and they are making it clear that there is no escape. There's nowhere to run. Everyday, it's been getting closer for six thousand years and going faster than a roller coaster for the last handful but a love like Beez and Gabe's will surely never come his and Crowley's way now.

It was always going to end like this. Nothing lasts forever. He told Crowley that, Before the Beginning. Six thousand years. That was all the time they had before the end of Earth, the place they'd come to call home. They found a way to borrow a few more years at the end of it since S1 and he got to dance with Crowley, their fingers brushing, and that is going to have to be enough because they're out of time.

The Metatron never needed say it directly but it was evident: they wanted Aziraphale to go to Heaven and they would say or do anything to get him up there and Aziraphale may have bought it for a moment but he's definitely figured out by the end of S2 that they need him up there not to become the Supreme Archangel but because his time as an angel is now over. The threat to Crowley is unspoken but omnipresent.

The Metatron makes it sound like he doesn't care if Crowley comes back up to Heaven with Aziraphale or not and he really doesn't and why would that be? Why would he be eager to have the two most troublesome beings in all of Heaven and Hell teaming up and getting in the way of his Second Coming plans, which he absolutely *knows* they won't support? Because they won't have jobs waiting for them up there. Crowley will not be restored to full angelic status.

They're going to kill them. Aziraphale knows it. He's known what Heaven is since Before the Beginning, even if he's been in denial about it for almost as long to try to assuage his own guilt over participating in it.

And it's a lot easier a goal for Heaven to accomplish if they separate them and just Aziraphale goes up to Heaven. If Aziraphale goes alone-- if he keeps Crowley from following-- then Crowley is not a threat to them if Aziraphale is gone.

They aren't as powerful apart.

Aziraphale knows that if Crowley comes to Heaven with him that they will kill him and Aziraphale thinks okay, this is it... this is my moment of redemption.

Six thousand years since Crowley Fell and I can finally make up for not saving him by saving him now.

I can go with The Metatron and let Heaven kill me and know that they will not threaten Crowley if they do because what they are threatened by is both of us together. One of us, alone, is less of a threat and the only problem here is that if I go... Crowley will follow me.

If I just go without telling him what The Metatron said and I don't come back right away, he'll go to Heaven, worried that something happened to me, and they'll kill him when he comes looking for me. He'll find out they've Book of Life'd me and do something stupid and my sacrifice to keep him safe will all be for nothing.

So what's our tortured angel to do?

Bandstand 2.0, right?

He's got to piss Crowley off enough that Crowley won't follow him.

He's got to piss Crowley off so much that Crowley *will never come back* and the worst part is that Aziraphale knows *exactly* how to do it.

He makes his own plans and if things get drastic enough, he'll blow up that damn halo, metaphorically-speaking this time. To save Crowley, he will break Crowley.

It's darkly romantic, really. He'll sacrifice himself for Crowley but to be sure that Crowley will be safe and not follow, he'll have to break his heart a bit first-- to further their misunderstandings in a season based on "I don't think your exactly is my exactly exactly"-level miscommunications.

So Aziraphale accepts The Metatron's offer and lets The Metatron think he completely believes that the offer is legit and maybe a part of him is still hoping that it is but he knows it's really not and that this is a suicide run. This is Aziraphale's Holy Water arc...

...and speaking of Holy Water... that arc from the perspective of this being Aziraphale's mentality... Crowley, tortured by Hell for what he did while with Aziraphale in 1827, then refusing to talk about it, showing up with a cane, sullen and depressed, asking Aziraphale for the one thing that would kill him and Aziraphale's unwillingness to understand that it wasn't completely suicide ideation on Crowley's part but as a way to *protect Aziraphale* and keep him safe. Crowley wanted what could kill a demon not to kill himself but to kill one that might come after Aziraphale. All Aziraphale could see, though, was Crowley's physical and emotional pain, that he could barely keep hidden in that era, and how Aziraphale couldn't make it better. All he could see was how he failed him and led him to this suffering. All he could see in a note begging for "holy water" was Crowley wanting a suicide pill, wanting to destroy himself, unable to take any more, in so much pain that he'd leave Aziraphale forever to make it stop. Aziraphale is blinded entirely by guilt and fails to see what Crowley is really saying, which was, ironically, the last time Crowley began to try to tell Aziraphale how he felt, which was:

I've been thinking-- what if it all goes wrong? (What if I lose you? I'm terrified of losing you. I love you. I wake up from nightmares of you being destroyed by the demons who just spent a couple of decades after 1827 not that long ago torturing me. I didn't know for sure if you were still alive during any of it.) We have a lot in common, you and me. (We're a team. A... group of the two of us.) What if it all goes pear-shaped? I need you to get me the magical demon-killing stuff so I have a weapon against *my own fellow fallen angels* that I can use in case they come after us. I would kill another demon and send every legion of Hell after me to protect you.

Aziraphale: I like pears.

(My God, they are so stupid. Please. I can't take any more lol.)

So, yeah... it's Aziraphale's turn for the holy water suicide run here only with an actual suicide run...

It takes the books in The Blitz for Aziraphale to really understand what Crowley was asking for and what he meant by asking for holy water and by 1967, he gives Crowley the holy water, in the one moment when *they actually talk*, as much as they can, about how much they love one another, that exists prior to the end of its parallel-- the end of S2.

So, yeah, Aziraphale "goes to tell his friend the good news" with a look on his face like he's marching to his death *because he is* and he knows it. His last moments with Crowley, in some of his last moments in existence, he already knows will be spent upsetting the man-shaped being he loves. He's got it all planned out. Not exactly the picnic of his dreams but it'll redeem him and save Crowley and that's all that matters to Aziraphale in this moment.

He will sound naive to the threat of Heaven and because Crowley doesn't remember pre-Fall, he won't remember how Aziraphale warned him against taking on the brass in Heaven so Crowley won't be suspicious, he'll be *frustrated*, like he was in the bandstand. He'll get angry. Aziraphale's goal is to get him to storm out-- but it has to be a really, really, bad relationship-ending storming out.

He can't come back after he drives The Bentley around the block like he did back in 2.01 and say "okay, fine, I'll help you" and Aziraphale knows that if he plays this right, he can make it so Crowley won't because helping Gabriel was one thing but asking Crowley to become an angel with him and pretending like they can go fix the broken system of Heaven is going to be Crowley's bridge too far. It's *the only thing* that Aziraphale believes is Crowley's bridge too far where Aziraphale is concerned and isn't that heartbreaking as hell? That Crowley loves him this much? And they never got to be together the way they wanted? That they were just beginning to get close to trying to figure that out?

That, hours ago, Aziraphale was asking him to dance and trying to ignore the signs of trouble around the corner, desperately wanting more time with him? That they are semi-immortal beings that always somehow seem to be out of time?

Truer words have never been spoken, Crowley. Little did you know, poor demon...

So Aziraphale goes into the bookshop and Crowley looks all worked up and wants to say something and some part of Aziraphale begins to hear warning alarms going off in his head because Crowley *never* looks like this-- is never this flustered, never this uncomfortable, never this nervous, never in a rush to say something-- and Aziraphale thinks no, can't be, we don't talk about this... even if, ironically, all of S2 shows that Aziraphale has been trying *for just that*. It was just a few hours ago that he was trying to Jane Austen a ball for them to use as a pretense to discuss their feelings because, in the height of ironies here, right?

Aziraphale was ready.

They'd had some time without Heaven and Hell breathing so much down their necks, even if the threat still loomed, and spent every day together and it was perfect and it was lovely and he knew Crowley would forgive him and Aziraphale was almost there, right, he was *almost* ready to tell him. He was almost ready to tell him he loved him and that it was him, all those millennia ago, who could have done something and didn't and he's so, so, so sorry and can Crowley ever forgive him? Is there any way that Crowley could ever forgive him after what he didn't say and didn't do when he should have? For all the times since that he's said things in anger when, really, he was madly in love and just full of his own issues to sort out? (Damn, Aziraphale, we're beginning to see your affinity for Austen heroes here...)

But he's out of time so there will be none of that now. Now is his karmic payback. Six thousand beautiful years with the being he loves and feels he doesn't deserve have led to Aziraphale's redemption being that he can sacrifice himself to save him. He can leave the world they love with Crowley and Crowley's *goodness* in it, as it should be. So when Crowley says he needs to say something, Aziraphale cannot-- CANNOT-- let him speak because he cannot bear it.

He suddenly fears that of course-- OF COURSE-- the one moment in all of these trillions of moments they've lived through where Crowley is about to directly say he loves him for the first time is the also the same fucking moment when Aziraphale has to destroy their relationship to save Crowley's life and Aziraphale will be dead after this and he cannot bear hearing what his life could have been. He can't hear Crowley say this right now or else he worries he might lose his nerve. He *wants* to hear it but if Crowley speaks first, Aziraphale might cave, he might be weak again like he was when Crowley Fell, he might fail him again, and he can't. Not after all this time. Not when he loves Crowley so much.

"What's that lovely human expression?! 'Hold that thought!'" he blurts out, in a callback to, of course, the moment Crowley saved him in 1941-- to that night where Aziraphale really realized for the first time that Crowley wasn't just capable of good or capable of being friendly towards him but that Crowley *loved* him and that he loved the Demon Crowley, whether or not he should. ("But somewhere in my wicked, miserable past," sings Frances McDormand as the Voice of God, from her apparent favorite film lol, "I must have done something good.")

Ah, yes. Played for suckers. Here is where it's important to note that in 1941, Aziraphale had no idea that Rose was really Greta and that he, in fact, was the one being played for a sucker. By the end of S2, though, it could be argued that he very much knows that The Metatron is Fraulein Greta Klauschmidt-- someone who presented herself as Captain Rose Montgomery, an agent of anti-fascist good, who approached Aziraphale in his bookshop and told him that he could be an agent of change, too. He could help save the world and stop the global rising tide of fascism represented by the Third Reich. He could even do so using his books. They plotted a sting together, in which he'd bring his books to a church and seem to give them to Nazis to give to the Fuhrer, only for agents to surround them and arrest the Nazis. Aziraphale, desperate to *do* good and to *be* good, falls for this-- he fails to see that Rose is really Greta, a Nazi agent who fools him into working for the enemy and getting him to help destroy the world in the process. Pretty obvious to see here that Greta is The Metatron in S2... but it's likely that Aziraphale knows it and is playing along because it's his turn to save Crowley, unlike what happened in 1941, when Crowley saves him and his books.

Crowley, in the bookshop back at the end of S2 in our present time, stops speaking at the "hold that thought", looking like he's about to be ill, and has to also be thinking of 1941 and the church now that Aziraphale has referenced it. Maybe, in some way, it's an unconscious effort on Aziraphale's part to convey to Crowley that this is a charade-- that he doesn't mean this, that it's an act-- but he really doesn't want Crowley to figure that out. It would defeat his goal. But he also doesn't want to hurt him because he loves him but this is the only way that Aziraphale can see to save him. So he starts gushing about his coffee with The Metatron, right? We all remember this pain lol.

Maybe I've misjudged him. (Aziraphale, we suspect you know that he tossed Crowley into hellfire and stole Gabriel's memories so honestly, the worst part of all of this is that you're so traumatized that Crowley is *buying* what you're saying here...) And guess what?! He wants me to be the new Supreme Archangel! And he said you can come! And you can be an angel again! It will be so fun! We can have a slumber party, Crowley, after days of doing good, and braid each other's hair!

Crowley is like jfc fml are you even serious right now? Which, of course, is what Aziraphale *was going for.* It's the "I don't even like you" and the "we're hereditary enemies" and the "I'm an angel, you're a demon" way of trying to intentionally push Crowley away but the new version of it because none of that flies with S2 Crowley-- most of it barely flew with him in S1-- because Crowley *knows.*

He knows that Aziraphale loves him. And he knows that Aziraphale knows him, which is to say he knows how to hurt him, and that's what this is but also Crowley just sees it as how much Heaven has hurt them both. How much they've hurt Aziraphale. Because just as Aziraphale looks at Crowley in the throes of his religious trauma-- "Unforgivable. It's what I am", etc.-- and wants to help and save and protect him, Crowley feels the same way in return when Aziraphale is like this. Frustrated, sure, but in just as much pain at how much pain Aziraphale is in and feels powerless to stop it but will do whatever he can to try to, yeah?

For Aziraphale, this is all going fairly well (it's miserable but in terms of goal, it's working) through "tell me you said no" but the problem is that Crowley is still pleading. He's still trying to work through it because they're an *us* now and also ironically of course this is when Crowley's been trying to do better with storming out lol so he's trying to couple-solve this. He's not just *leaving* like how Aziraphale had hoped. He had been trying to sell to Crowley that he could pick Heaven over Crowley and Crowley is just kinda... not believing it so much at first and, instead, is trying to approach it like a problem for the two of them to solve together, instead of as a decision that Aziraphale has made for his life that he's stating that Crowley can take or leave.

Which calls back to this scene in 2.01 at the start of this arc, when Crowley calls their life *his* life and Aziraphale counters with that he thought *they* had carved out a life for themselves *together* and Crowley answers: "so did I!" Because they haven't had a discussion about what they are, exactly, at that point, Crowley still cautiously calls *their* life *his* life, retaining a sense of autonomy, as if he's only making decisions for himself when, in reality, they are a couple who are trying to make a life together and have been doing so consciously since S1. Crowley calls that life "precious" and "peaceful" to Aziraphale-- beautiful, lovely things that they both treasure and want and find with one another-- but also "fragile". The threats to them still loom large in the background and they are still so afraid to go much further in their relationship because, in part, of those threats and how terrified they are of losing one another... which just makes the end of S2 even more brutal, really.

(*mantras* cottage in the south downs cottage in the south downs...)

So back in That Scene later in S2, Aziraphale is then just kind of stuck trying to figure out how to get Crowley to be so angry with him that he storms out and never comes back in the face of Crowley trying to very much not do that and then Crowley starts saying that he needs to say what he was going to say or he never will and Aziraphale *knows*, ok? He knows what Crowley needs to say. He just literally cannot believe this is going to happen right now. He honestly can't believe it's happening at all but right now?!

He knows before Crowley begins speaking. He probably knew when he told him to "hold that thought" a few moments before but he *really* knows now. Crowley has no idea that Aziraphale has planned for this to be the last time they ever see one another and to go sacrifice himself to Heaven for whatever they want to do with him to keep them away from Crowley. Crowley looks like he's about to pass out from nerves and can barely speak and just...

...six. thousand. years...

...I know we have all looked at the heartbreak of this scene from Crowley's POV here every which way to Sunday, okay, but just imagine you are Aziraphale, who has loved this being since before the literal beginning of time, and you blame yourself for his pain and suffering, and he's standing here, braver than you've ever been with him, looking into your eyes and telling you that he knows that you love him and that he loves you and he knows you both have known this for basically the entirety of your existence together and he can't pretend anymore. He doesn't want to pretend anymore. He knows things have changed over the last few years between you and he wants more of that. He wants to be with you.

The two of you are not even human, just human-adjacent beings who have gone native from the stars and clouds here, who live and love like humans, who know that maybe the angels and demons have it backwards and God's great creatures are the humans-- that it should be the good in them that you should be trying to emulate-- and Crowley had never been more beautifully, impossibly human than while he's standing there looking ready to pass out while asking you if, after six millennia, it might be alright for him to not hide how much he loves you.

How many times has Aziraphale imagined this by this point? A million? How many different ways? There's at least half of them when he imagines that he's the one who gets up the courage first but there are so. many. Crowley. fantasies. Ones in every time period. But always *a fantasy*, at least up until maybe very recently. Why?

Not even just Heaven and Hell and the threat of being caught but the fact that Aziraphale believes that Crowley doesn't know Aziraphale didn't save him during The Fall and how could he ever really love him if he knew? How could Aziraphale ever go to him like this and give Crowley everything he knows Crowley has desired for so long without telling him the truth about Aziraphale's role in Crowley's Fall-- but then, Aziraphale assumes, he'd lose Crowley forever? So this has always been a pipe dream for Aziraphale-- fantasies from a world where they ever stood a chance of being together-- never really something that could be reality and here it is, starting, happening *now*...

...after six. thousand. years. of living with this guilt and in the last moments in which he will ever see Crowley before he heads to his likely death, with no time to tell him the truth and beg for his forgiveness, no time to ever know what their lives might be like if they could be together.

As Crowley, unbeknownst to Aziraphale, mused dramatically, if not inaccurately, earlier in the season... it's always too late.

It's punishment, in Aziraphale's mind. That's what Crowley's proposal, his confession, is now. It's his Fall, whether he falls or not when he leaves the bookshop for Heaven. It's karmic retribution-- it's God, finally saying something, and what she's saying is:

Look at what you've done, Aziraphale...

Look at how he loves you.

He was never unforgivable.

You are.

Aziraphale might be erased from existence once he gets to Heaven and he knows that's a possibility but he basically is dying here. Crowley is killing him. Crowley has pointed that silver bullet gun straight at his head and fired but he's missed and the bullet isn't in Aziraphale's teeth, it's gone through him.

Crowley, here, tears in his eyes, asking for whatever time they have. An eternity? Impossible, unlikely. Angel and demon. One day, the war will begin again-- another war to end all wars, like all the ones they've fell more and more in love during throughout history-- but it might be the one where Heaven or Hell wins and they're doomed to spend eternity apart. Crowley has said before he thinks the real war is humanity versus Heaven and Hell and that sounds like he thinks there's a chance they could survive it but who knows? They don't know. They're immortal beings who live like humans and that's, of late, included a sense of mortality. They don't know how much time they have left and Crowley is asking for all of it. He is asking for whatever time they have left to be spent together, openly loving one another, and what he doesn't know is what Aziraphale knows:

That they're already out of time.

Crowley is proposing marriage unaware that Aziraphale is dying. It's always too late, Crowley had stated earlier but had hope that maybe it wasn't but it is. And Aziraphale?

Gah. Aziraphale...

He's never loved him more. He's never wanted him more. He wants to tell him that he wants that, too, that they can have it, that Crowley can have anything he wants, but it's not true. It's not true because they could run out the back door of the bookshop now and hop in the Bentley and end-of-Grease it up to Alpha Centauri and Heaven will still find them. Heaven and Hell will still be after them. Running away solves nothing and Crowley always, ultimately, anyway, comes back and this time-- this time-- for Crowley's own good, to save his life, Aziraphale needs him to leave the bookshop and never come back.

And the moment that Crowley confesses that he loves him and that he knows Aziraphale loves him in return and that they've both known this, forever, and asks him if he can be allowed to just love him, Aziraphale loves him so much in return that he'll break his heart to save him from dying.

Dying is... not on, as High!Crowley put it in 1827 lol, but suicide-ish attempts are, if it's Aziraphale's turn this time.

So he twists the knife. He hides the goats as pigeons and he looks at Crowley and does a bit of this:

...only with the exact opposite intent. In the Job minisode, Crowley cannot speak aloud his true intentions. (Something he can finally do in the S2 finale, when he declares his love for Aziraphale.) He cannot tell Aziraphale outrightly that he had zero desire whatosever to kill Job's kids and animals and doesn't plan on actually doing it and, in fact, is actively engaged in a bit of bait-and-switch to make it look like he's doing what he's supposed to be doing as mandated by Heaven! this time as well as Hell (a nice little extra bit of paralleling to the end of S2 and Aziraphale, there.) He wants Aziraphale to believe him enough to allow him to pull it off because saving the kids and the pets (and protecting Aziraphale from any harm that might come to him if he gets in the way of what Crowley's been asked to do) matters more to Crowley than Aziraphale believing him...

...and believing him here means believing *in* him. Believing that they are on the same side and it's their own side and they're in it together. Crowley has to lie to him here *and it works for a moment*. It's really important to note that *it works*. Aziraphale believes that Crowley can do this and that he wants to-- that he not only can but he *longs* (lol) to "kill the blameless kids of Job"-- but it's all in Crowley's wording. He isn't *actually* lying. He *does* long to kill the blameless kids of Job like how he killed the blameless goats of Job-- because he "killed the blameless goats of Job" by turning them into pigeons. So he's really saying to Aziraphale that he longs to *fake the deaths* of the blameless kids of Job and plans to in the same way that he did the goats. In that moment, though? It didn't matter if Crowley was lying or telling the truth. There was only one goal--

--to get Aziraphale to walk away.

To get Aziraphale to leave, for his own safety, and let Crowley handle this. Better that he misunderstand Crowley and be disappointed in him and think him a lost cause than to get himself into trouble. Crowley out here loving Aziraphale that much in the days of Bildad the Shuite. (This poor mfer. Six. Thousand. Years lol.)

So what caused Crowley's plan to save Aziraphale in the Job era to not work?

One of the pigeons bleated, right?

Aziraphale heard it and realized that Crowley hadn't been lying so much as he had been trying to protect Aziraphale from his plan of subterfuge against the Almighty and Satan. The difference is that there are no bleating pigeons in the S2 finale... there's just *a whole certain famous other kind of damn bird instead* and its *absence* from the scene is the big emotional gut punch moment. And we all know it but I'll gif it anyway since this is already a depressing meta (cottage in the south downs cottage in the south downs...)...

...and that *is* the point. Because unlike back in the Bildad the Shuite days, there is no bleating pigeon (at least, not yet) to make Crowley realize that all is not what it seems and that Aziraphale is trying to lie to him and get him to leave to protect him from Heaven.

As Aziraphale is like mortally wounded here by Crowley's confession of love and is so not going to recover from this, he's now got to not only get Crowley to leave feeling like Aziraphale rejected being their own team for Heaven, he has to now do it with all of it out in the open-- with Crowley having openly confessed love for him, with him having asked for them to be together. He's not just going to have to frustrate Crowley more than he ever has before and get him to leave more angry than he was before, he has to, instead, smash into little tiny bits the very beautiful, very passionate, beating heart of the being he has loved since he met him *making the stars* in the bloody sky here...

The only way to get Crowley to go now is to make Crowley think he's rejecting the idea of loving him. Aziraphale honestly can't even sell the idea that he *doesn't* love Crowley because Crowley won't believe it-- he knows Aziraphale does and he's said as much in his whole marriage proposal here. So it has to be that Crowley thinks Aziraphale chose Heaven over loving him. Chose being an angel. That he really meant all of those 'hereditary enemies' and 'you're a demon' moments and to sell that, he sells it.

(You're a dark horse, Mr. Fell, Nina said of him in 2.01... the same turn of phrase Crowley uses when surprised by the secret skills and narrative power of Jane Austen later on in the pub.)

Aziraphale does love himself a bit of theatre. A bit of a disappearing act. The West End, The West End...

...our Nefertiti-fooling fellow...

He sells it with:

Well, of course you said no, *you're* the bad guys...

Come with me... I'll run, it you can be *my second-in-command*...

We can be together. *Angels*. Doing *good*...

...oh, Crowley... nothing lasts forever...

For his final act, The Marvelous Mr. Fell will saw his ineffable husband's heart in half by spewing a litany of everything he can think of to say that will piss him off enough to make him leave the bookshop broken-hearted enough to never come back.

Only someone put a miracle blocker on here because, try as he might and good heavens (pardon the pun), Aziraphale is *trying* here...

...this turnip is not turning into a damn inkwell.

Crowley finally starts to go-- it's looking promising. Finally, Aziraphale thinks, this misery might end. Six thousand years of wanting to speak of all of this between them and hoping for some happiness when-- if-- it could maybe someday arrive, if it even could-- and it's the worst moment of Aziraphale's existence and he knows it is the same for Crowley.

Crowley stops and the "do you hear that?" And no, Aziraphale doesn't hear anything, he just has never been more upset and Crowley needs to just go because Aziraphale can't handle another moment of this, how could it possibly get worse?

Nightingales. Of course.

A call back to S1's "no more world-class composers/little restaurants where they know you/gravalax and dill sauce/old bookshops" but this time, it's "no nightingales". There's Armageddon coming that neither of them know about in this moment. It's still a 'someday, they'll try again' concept to them in this scene, not an extremely immediate threat, as Aziraphale doesn't learn about The Second Coming until after this. So the end of the world that Crowley references here is the end of *their* world and that means no nightingales. No romance. No *them*, together. Worth remembering that Crowley thought, up until maybe what? Five minutes ago? That they were headed to breakfast at the Ritz together. They should have been sitting there together *in this moment*, is what he's saying. Miracling the pianist to play "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" and gazing at one another over teapots and mimosas and croissants.

That's gone, since you chose Heaven instead, is what Crowley states and Aziraphale knows it because, God help him (no, literally, GOD HELP HIM! WHERE THE HELL DID YOU GO OFF TO THIS SEASON, FRANCES?!), it's what he's *trying* to make happen.

You idiot, says the once-Bildad the Shuite, who thought he was taking his beloved to the ox rib special this morning and not getting dumped for an old floating head and the cinematic world's most contentious to-go cup of coffee, we could have been... us.

Not really a part of the theory here, just the observation that Crowley's confession/proposal begins with him unable to say "a couple", in case this all goes pear-shaped and he needs to have never said something that romantic, so he says instead "a team", "a group-- of the two of us". He says it without saying it. But, by the end? He just says "us." He *present*-tenses it. He's like forget everything else, angel, we could have just kept on being us because we both know what we are. We don't need to find the right turn of phrase or even the most specific human word for it. We are just *us* and we could have kept on with that but you chose the mentality of your abusive family and asked me to be what I'm not and I still love you because I *know* you but I can't be with you like that and *you* know that.

And he kisses him. Because Franny McD says you ain't suffered enough yet, Aziraphale lol. Should I just gif it while we're miserable? If you've read this far, a month has passed and hopefully, you've taken breaks and I do apologize but I'm gonna gif it because yeah. Here we go, folks...

God, make it stop, pleads Aziraphale to literal God and here comes Crowley with the S1 wall slam parallel, all dammit, angel, I know you've wanted us to snog for centuries and this is our last chance.

I know people have opinions about this kiss and I know we're all posting them here, obviously myself included, but while I've seen a lot of like... 'Crowley knows it's the only time they ever will be able to because Aziraphale is leaving him for Heaven' and 'Crowley wants to remind Aziraphale what he's giving up and could have had' and 'Crowley tries the kiss to see if it'll change Aziraphale's mind' takes-- and I agree with all of those things and think they're all right-- I've not seen a lot of 'Crowley kisses Aziraphale *for Aziraphale*' and I think that's a big part of it, too.

Crowley really isn't stupid. Not when it comes to Aziraphale wanting him. It would be honestly hard to spend a zillion lifetimes on Earth and not get it after like...

And Crowley understands Aziraphale's particular brand of religious trauma more than most, since he has a variant version of it himself. He understands that where his whole thing is that he's very much *not* an angel anymore, that Aziraphale's identity is wrapped up in being one and the conflicts he has with Heaven and while Crowley is not yet quite hearing what Nina said-- that she just got out of an abusive relationship and that she's not yet ready to be with Maggie and needs time-- and marrying that to Aziraphale and Heaven (especially because Aziraphale is showing exactly zero signs of trying to get out of his relationship with Heaven lol), Crowley wants Aziraphale to have had what he (Aziraphale) wanted, even if it was for only a moment. He can't go with him. This is the *one* scenario where Crowley cannot follow where Aziraphale goes, where he can't come to him and rescue him, because Aziraphale has said he doesn't want him to. Aziraphale wants to go and do this and the only way he'll take Crowley is if Crowley wants to become an angel again, which Crowley will not do.

And damned if there isn't a part of Aziraphale that thinks that if The Metatron can really be trusted, wouldn't that be something? That if he gets up there to Heaven and he really is made Supreme Archangel and if Crowley changes his mind, if he comes back, like he always does... if he storms out and leaves but then misses him too much and takes the elevator up... then maybe Aziraphale could make him an angel again and while Crowley hears in Aziraphale offering that you aren't good enough as a demon-- you're not good, period and even if he doesn't totally believe that Aziraphale really thinks that but knows Aziraphale has enough religious conflict that it's a problem for their relationship, what Aziraphale *really* means is... I could fix it.

I could go back and un-Fall you. I could take away your pain. I could stop your suffering. I'd have the *power* to do it when I don't right now and it kills me, every day. I could right the wrong I did, the sin I committed-- the real Original Sin-- six thousand years ago when I betrayed you, when Heaven betrayed you.

I could do right by you, the way She never did.

I am going to Heaven to either have the power to do that or to be obliterated into non-existence and I don't totally know which, though surviving is not looking promising, but all I know is that it's too dangerous for you to follow me right now until I do know so I'd rather hurt you than see you dead.

You want to be with me and I am afraid it will lead to your destruction so I need to say anything to put the breaks on your attempt and make you back off. To a lesser extent, I've done it before. Can do again.

Only this time, no hope of the possible, future picnic, I'm afraid...

It really is the worst possible Aziraphale nightmare here like... everything he's ever wanted. Six millennia of wanting to pull Crowley close and he has to reject him or Crowley could die. Fanfic season here said Coffee Shop AU and also a reverse-Fuck or Die for the ages. People complaining that it's awkward? YES. It's supposed to be. Crowley has no idea that Aziraphale is facing a round of sudden death here and was just hoping for his one fabulous kiss and vavoom. Even if it didn't change anything-- he wanted *Aziraphale* to feel that. To know how much he's wanted this for so long and to have it, even if they can't again. The intent is terribly romantic, as is Aziraphale flailing in the middle of it and giving in because he is made of strong, halo-exploding stuff here but he's wanted this forever. He goes up on his toes, he leans in, his hands flail around and he touches Crowley's back. He *shouldn't* do any of this if he's trying to meet his goal of getting Crowley to leave because it gave Crowley hope. It might have even been what motivated Crowley to stay outside and not go right away, or at least a part of it. But Aziraphale had to because he loves him and he couldn't help it.

Then, *sob*, The Michael Sheen eviscerating all of us here...

For anyone who might still be saying that is an "I didn't want his kiss" face... hard, HARD, VERY HARD disagree. That is "I didn't want *this* kiss, like this, right now." That is a man-shaped being who was just kissed by the love of his life for what may have been the first time but, at minimum, is for what he believes will be the *last* time. (I'm still out here holding out some hope for Blitz, Part 3-- a nice first kiss after they kill some Zombie Nazis with Chekhov's derringer in the bookshop but I digress...somehow, even if this entire long meta is one long digression, I digress lol...)

It's the face of a man gutted by the fact that this, in his wildest dreams, was not supposed to happen like this and he's been alive for damn ever at this point so he's had *all* the wildest dreams. And a lot of them, let's be real, have centered around Crowley doing just this. Exactly this. Crowley ain't wrong with the 'grabbing him by the collar and kissing him senseless in the middle of the bookshop' thing. He's wanted to do it for centuries. And the middle of the bookshop bit? That's important, too. This is their home. It's *their* home, even if Crowley is technically homeless. It's safe for him in here and Aziraphale has made it so. It's where they've spent thousands of hours together, happy and safe in each other's company, and here they are, bouille-bouile-bouile-baby-ing finally and it's a complete and utter, unmitigated trash truck dumpster fire.

Honestly, this was a better kiss than in S2 lol. S1 laying down though how long they've been dreaming about it (and having Crowley start listing animals that are in Aziraphale's nonsense magic spell, like he flashes back to 1941 when thinking about the end of the world and kissing Aziraphale in the bookshop... so you can see why I'm moderately hopeful that maybe they did kiss then, once, before then trying to never again until Crowley kisses Aziraphale in 2.06.)

I'm going to bring this back around now to the comparison I made above with Crowley and Jesus and talk about how 2.06's end scenes are also like the last temptation of Christ. Good Omens makes it pretty clear that Aziraphale is the tempter, really, of the two of them, in their relationship. Crowley can't say no to him and Aziraphale has learned it and loves to puppy eyes Crowley into anything he wants.

Crowley knows it and is fine with it. He's smitten and happy to be wrapped around Aziraphale's finger. Crowley has tempted Aziraphale and we see that in S2 with the ox rib. He is, himself, just by existing, tempting to Aziraphale. But in terms of temptation carrying with it a bit of manipulation and *that* kind of tempting being what's demonic in nature? Then Aziraphale is, and always has been, the demon of the two of them. This is true into the end of S2, as while there is almost nothing that Crowley would deny Aziraphale, there is really only one thing and that's to change who he is for him. To become an angel again, to work for Heaven again, after what they've done to him and Aziraphale. So the end of S2 is then Aziraphale's temptation-- it's a test, of sorts, for Crowley, even if Aziraphale doesn't intend for it to be. Crowley resists the temptation. Even for Aziraphale, he won't follow the path of darkness for himself and become something he's not. Crowley-Jesus. (Aziraphale-Satan S3 incoming lol.)

And if you've been reading all of this right then you know what happens next and what it means from the POV of this guilt-ridden Aziraphale...

I honestly don't think Aziraphale is really that angry *with Crowley* at this point-- I think he's just angry. He's reached his limit and then some. He has a lot of simmering, under the surface rage on a good day that only bubbles over when he's stressed by a situation he can't control and here is the ultimate one, really. He's a little mad at Crowley because they've waited countless years for that and in an argument, while ironically probably kind of perfect for them, is not really how *either* of them wanted it to be... but, mostly, Aziraphale is just angry that he can't have any of those moments at all. That they're out of time. That they had all this time and they never really could be safely together and that he's been haunted for six thousand years of the image of his fluffy cloud of redheaded sunshine, bloodied and stricken, and then tossed to Hell while Aziraphale was powerless to stop it. He's never seen those eyes since and he loves the snake ones. He loves all of Crowley with all he has but he's never been allowed to *have* him and never felt safe enough to try and now it's all over. And he still has to make Crowley fucking leave this bookshop for his plan of self-sacrifice to fucking work here so...

...I forgive you. It's the worst thing he can think of. The thing Crowley always hates. The thing that he knows makes Crowley feel lesser and demonic, even if Aziraphale has always, always meant it as an I love you. He even spits it out to Crowley with an almost self-deprecating, referential tone to it-- like "here we go again-- you say you love me and I say 'I forgive you' because I can't say anything else, can I?" The anger is laced underneath it and all the pain but he's intentionally referencing how this this the thing he says whenever Crowley says they can be their own side. He's trying to claim that nothing has changed in all of these years, when they both know that everything has changed since S1 and the bandstand. That's what makes it hurt both of them even more. Aziraphale chooses to say "I forgive you" because he knows that Crowley has never heard it for how Aziraphale means it and Aziraphale is a little bitter about it and lets it show in the moment, since Aziraphale's I forgive you always really means...

I can't stand to see you in pain and if there's any power in me as an angel to stop it, then I will do that so I forgive you and may that make it easier, may that make it all okay, even though I know it won't.

And just before saying I forgive you, Aziraphale's mouth works and he almost-- almost-- says I love you instead... what Crowley would really give anything to hear.

You can see the 'l' forming there, the beginning of "love", what he *really* wanted to say... what Crowley himself didn't even actually explicitly say. Crowley said it without saying it. He called them a couple without saying that word, asked for eternity without fully asking for it, said he loved him by acknowledging that they had both been pretending, but Crowley was terrified and so he said the things in a way that made it obvious what he was saying and asking for but, so unused to not speaking in code are they, that Crowley didn't say he loved Aziraphale, not directly. He did say it. He just didn't say it in those words.

And for a second, Aziraphale almost does.

He can't stand that he's breaking Crowley's heart. He can't stand that Crowley has kissed him and Aziraphale only briefly kissed him back, only barely touched him, when he really wanted to go at him like an ox rib and never let him go, and he starts to say the truth because no part of him really *wants* to be lying like this to Crowley. But he stops. And not even just because he needs Crowley to leave the shop to save his life but because, in the last four minutes, Crowley has confessed love and proposed and they've kissed and Aziraphale, pretty sure he actually died somewhere in the middle there and he's now stuck somewhere in one of Dante's worst circles of Hell lol, just cannot *also* have this be the moment where he says "I love you" to Crowley.

It's not even false hope that maybe they'll somehow have more time. With Heaven breathing down his neck in the form of The Metatron, Aziraphale has no real hope of that. He just always dreamed of telling him and not like this. He doesn't want Crowley to hear it like this, either, not as a part of a rejection. The anger, instead, surfaces, because why can't he and Crowley just *have* this?! How the hell did Gabriel and Beezlebub get to fuck off to Alpha Centauri after dating for ten minutes when he and Crowley have spent bloody eons in queer pining hell over here? What did they ever do that was so wrong to deserve this? Why was Crowley asking questions so terrible? Why have they had to spend thousands of years pretending not to love each other as if love-- the epitome of the angelic-- was unholy? Why, Aziraphale is wondering, now that they are out of time, did he ever spend so many years terrified when, in the end, it all ended tragically anyway?

How many of those years could Aziraphale have spent loving Crowley the way they ought to have been able to have and denied themselves of for so long?

And then Crowley finally does it. Tells him "don't bother" about the forgiveness-- about the love, as Aziraphale has always meant it-- and he leaves. It worked. The anger and pain and saying "I forgive you" after that kiss... it worked. And Crowley leaves and Aziraphale, alone, is a complete mess of broken and furious and broken some more.

Crowley, as we know, doesn't get to see this moment. Muriel does! Great for fic! Hilarious by show standards that the new angel who is literally being ordered to take over Aziraphale's home against his will is who witnesses the aftermath of the intimate moment our angel has been craving, oh, just since before the dawn of humanity over here.

He touches his lips, his hand trembles... have you all noticed that Aziraphale is literally fucking *tasting and eating* what of himself Crowley left in his mouth here? He's pulling every bit of Crowley to his tongue from his teeth and *swallowing*, like he knows it's all of him he'll ever again be able to consume, like he's committing how he tastes to memory for the last like, who knows, ten? fifteen? twenty minutes? of his own existence that he knows he probably has left...

Jesus fucking Christ, Michael Sheen...

This is all without yet mentioning the single most under-analyzed line in S2 that calls into question a ton of stuff, which is this beauty from Shax, right off the top of 2.01:

"Beezlebub's put some of the lesser demons on half-rations."

What does this have to do with Aziraphale consuming Crowley's kiss like it's the most scrumptious thing he's ever tasted (because it is) and being furious that it'll be their last?

Because that Shax line casually confirms that demons eat. Do they eat human food or some sort of demon food or both? Who knows, really, but they're *supposed* to eat. Ok, but is it just a demon thing? No, because it ties to Crowley's comments in S1 about how he complained that the food wasn't really that good lately when hanging out with Lucifer and The Gang, which then implies that, at least back then, *angels* ate, too. Eating was a normal thing. Over time, though, we know that the higher angels have come to see eating as human and pedestrian and not something befitting of an angel. Some demons eat-- even Crowley eats, if less than and differently than Aziraphale-- but the angels think it's beneath them and if we have confirmation via Shax in S2 that they are supposed to be eating and basically only don't die because they're immortal beings and not human, even if they have human corporations, then the show is saying that all of these angels are fucking starving themselves.

They're doing what they're told and denying their own nature and their own needs in the process.

S2 also shows that with the ox rib, right?

Aziraphale went *at* that thing. He'd never eaten at all in a couple thousand years after being told it was un-angelic and so when he tasted food for the first time, he went so overboard that he's been Mr. Prim and Proper with his napkins and table etiquette ever since out of embarrassment over Crowley watching him food orgasm once-- and that's the metaphor there, as we've all figured out. Our show that has a sex worker named Mrs. Sandwich is all about its ongoing food-as-sex metaphor. S2 even opens with the hilarious turnabout from S1 as a "thank you for my pornography", "why do you consume *that*?" Gabriel shows up at the bookshop-- naked-- and has a food orgasm trying hot chocolate for the first time.

Gabe, babe, Aziraphale does not need the play-by-play here....

Mah point is... mah point is that Tumblr is maxing me at 30 images per post and so you'll just have to picture Crowley slurring "dolphins" while I get to my actual point here...

Mah point is while this is a whole separate analysis almost and one that many of you have already done in different ways re: food & sex on the show, my point here is that starving yourself of food in Good Omens is analogous to being touch-starved or love-deprived and before someone yells at me about how angelic beings don't necessarily need sex or are by nature not into sex unless they make an Effort, I agree with you and Neil Gaiman. I'm just also saying the show is suggesting that they all have human corporations and that many of those human corporations are not sex-averse so for those of them that are not, they're literally out here touch-starved and/or sex-starved here in different ways. But, you say, maybe Crowley is hungry (goodness knows, Crowley *is hungry* lol) but Aziraphale eats all the time!

Yeah. Aziraphale eats *food*, all the time. But he isn't touched all the time. He doesn't have sex all the time. He isn't kissed all the time. The 2.06 scene shows him *physically* making that metaphor of food and sex real for us-- we watch him *consume* what remains of Crowley's kiss--showing that he's desperate for it and deprived of it. He's starved for it, to a point of trembling hands and rolling every bit of Crowley's lingering taste around his mouth like he's taking on every last bite of the best crepe he could ever imagine in all his days...

...and then being, understandably, full of rage that this is the only time he's going to ever have Crowley-- and all he's ever going to have of him, when Crowley just offered all of himself-- forever.

And then The Metatron comes back and is Aziraphale ready to go to his death now? And, Friends, Aziraphale...

...is absolutely not.

He's turned away from the door, barely containing tears. When the door opened and he turned, he half-hoped it'd be Crowley but it was grr That Bastard instead. He looks out the window and Crowley is still out there...

...he left but he didn't really *leave*... and it somehow then still isn't over and will someone please just take Aziraphale out back and angel-shoot him? He can't take any more of this.

What about the shop? he asks, in a moment of desperation and terror over what's to come and some blind, stupid hope that he can somehow get out of all of this with him and Crowley still alive and The Metatron, who anticipated this, tells him Muriel lives here now. Aziraphale looks around the home he's made for him and Crowley for the last 223 years and his favorite books and possessions. Crowley's hat from 1941 is on the hat stand, the horse statue is where Crowley put his glasses back when he trusted him, back when he let Aziraphale see his pretty yellow eyes whenever Aziraphale wanted in recent years... before he just put his glasses back on now and closed himself off again.

Aziraphale is never going to see those eyes he loves again. He didn't even get to kiss Crowley without the sunglasses on before it was all over.

Even Gabriel had something to take up to Heaven with him to remind him of the demon he loved but Aziraphale goes to Heaven and to his death empty-handed because he pushed Crowley away to save him from all of this and, in the final push, he looks at Crowley standing there by The Bentley, all that secretly optimistic, beautiful, romantic hope about him still in him from the angel Aziraphale first met, all the awareness there of Aziraphale-- the only being who really knows him-- and so he's still waiting, still hoping. It goes back a few hours to the ball.

I'll be back. I won't leave you on your own.

But it's Aziraphale's call now and he gets into the elevator. The Metatron wins because Aziraphale's love for Crowley wins. He'll die before he lets anything happen to him, even if he wants to run to that car and to him but where would they run *to*? There's no place to go. Crowley has always been wrong about that. They can't go off together. There's no place safe from Heaven for them.

So Aziraphale gets into the elevator at The Dirty Donkey, leaving Crowley alone in the street once again, just with less hope this time than in 1967.

So Aziraphale leaves the bookshop this time, instead of going into it like he did in S1, when he left Crowley in the street, standing beside The Bentley, while clutching a different book this time-- Agnes Nutter's prophecies in his hand versus The Book of Life and its threatened erasure hanging over Aziraphale like the specter that it is. What was predicted about the future versus erasure from the past and all time. Nothing to see here, Crowley! Everything is as it's seems.

Everything is tickety-boo!

Tickety-boo?

Yes, which is also what Aziraphale-as-Crowley said... when he was kidnapped by Heaven and Hell in S1, remember? When he was taken from Earth to be sentenced to death... along *with* Crowley.

This time, Aziraphale is shutting Crowley out again. Telling him 'mind how you go' again, this time a bit more, uh, emphatically lol. And on their heels, again, the end of the world. Arma-bloody-geddon 2.0: The Second Coming.

Aziraphale heard The Metatron saying that was the plan-- as, of course, our villain walked away and meant for it not to be totally heard, further implying that they have no plans to really make Aziraphale the Supreme Archangel and that this is all a remix of Fraulein Greta Klauschmidt. That then makes this all somehow *even worse*... because now Aziraphale gets in the elevator to ride up to his death to save Crowley but now he knows that it was all for nothing.

War is coming. The planet they love will be destroyed. Crowley, if he knows him well enough, will likely die trying to save it. When he does, he'll still be damned to Hell for all of eternity while Aziraphale thinks he likely won't exist at all once he makes it upstairs and Michael finally gets to Book of Life him. Let the other angels think he's been played for a sucker. Better they think him a fool than that they come for Crowley.

He doesn't want to Fall and doesn't wish for it. If they take his memories as punishment, and they almost certainly will, he won't remember any of the moments he spent with Crowley and even if they could have eternity together in Hell if the world is destroyed, he wouldn't wish Crowley the pain of being around him when he didn't remember anything.

Aziraphale only finding out about The Second Coming in the moment before he gets on the elevator-- *after* everything happens with Crowley-- is a million times worse because now Aziraphale is riding to his death knowing that everything they've done in six thousand years doesn't matter and that the events of S1 didn't matter because all it did was delay the inevitable end of the world and everything Aziraphale loves is about to be destroyed.

That, apparently, was God's ineffable, Great Plan.

All of that is what is on Aziraphale's face on the ride up to Heaven in the final splitscreen.

In that splitscreen, Crowley, for what it's worth, is visually echoing the driving back from Tadfield bit that leads to the "tickety-boo" moment of Aziraphale lying to him by omission. He looks close to a parallel to the S1 moment where he suddenly yelled:

"DUCKS!"

They're what water slides off of. In this context? They were also the thing itching at the back of Crowley's mind-- the not quite right thing, the puzzle he couldn't quite figure out, the question he coudln't yet quite answer... until he could. That's positive, actually. It means there might be something for him to realize, even if that realization might come too late in the short term. (They will solve everything and be fine, memory-intact, immortal beings in love who go off together by the end of it. This is all just until then.)

Ducks are also, sort of, the be all and end all of Good Omens. Crowley knows how to take care of them, after all, when others do not. You feed them frozen peas-- they are good for them and they love them, too. (Don't feed him coffee, you Metatron idiot! He only ever drank one mug of it in S1 and it led to the *points above* see: tickety-boo Aziraphale lying to Crowley paralleling sequence of scenes.) [The "do you have one, single, better idea?" scene is Aziraphale drinking coffee, for reference.]

So, yeah, by comparison here... Aziraphale, you are a duck lol. You have been fed bread by idiots for far too long when, really, you need to be eating frozen peas. Crowley knows this and he knows how to take care of you. With any luck, he's about to have his duck-moment-paralleling epiphany any moment now, though I fear you're already going to be memory-wiped and fallen to Hell when he does. That's okay, though, because this is the main scene that still needs a go-around in paralleling and we know Crowley knows where the dungeons are down there from unfortunate, personal experience.

Cottage in the south downs, cottage in the south downs, cottage in the south downs, cottage....

Notes: Hi! If you have made it all the way here, thank you for reading. I hope it was worth the read for you. You all write such great stuff that I felt inspired to put my lit and film studies and psych background to use and jump in a bit. Thanks for indulging me. I also wish to note that there is a gif above that is by @fuckyeahgoodomens but for some reason, the credit was not working properly so I just wanted to make sure you knew who was providing us the visual joy.

#ineffable husbands #good omens #crowley x aziraphale #good omens meta #long post #good omens theory #i am not kidding you this is kinda long but there are gifs and jokes and i brought snacks? #aziraphale #crowley #good omens 2 #good omens 2 spoilers #gabriel

[theflagscene]

The hand rubbing scene is the gayest sex scene GMMtv has ever had on screen, allow me to explain to you why.

Gifs by @wanderlust-in-my-soul 

Now I can’t speak as someone who is completely blind (obviously) but I can speak as someone who has been progressively losing their sight for the past 15 years - ironically enough from a car accident. Why hello Day, I see you! (pun intended) But I’m also a person who grew up HoH (hard of hearing) from the age of two years old onward, I had tubes put in my ears, wore hearing aids, the whole shebang. The chances of me actually regaining my ability to hear completely was very very slim, the fact that I did actually end up regaining some - not all - of my hearing by my late twenties was a damn shock to us all. The point being, when you are a person who’s lost one of your senses that you are used to having, your body starts to overcompensate.

Most everyone has heard/read/seen things about how removing one sense can lead to your other ones becoming stronger. There’s even been studies that show people born deaf or deafened at a very young age, that their brain starts to rewire itself to allow them to experience sound in a visual way, via touch. It’s sort of like how blind people learn to read braille in a way, the touch creates a picture in your mind allowing you to see the way that word looks and sounds and feels. Theres a whole bit in Scientific America you can check out if you want that breaks it down in layman terms without the writing acting like you’re stupid, which is always nice when it comes to medical jargon lol.

So my point that to Day, his sense of touch is not only in overdrive because it like much of the rest of his senses - smell seems to be a big one they’re leading with - are scambling to try and overcompensate for the sudden lack of sight that is getting worse as time passes. But because he had pulled away from basically the entire world post blindness setting in, spending the last year of his life in his room hardly interacting with anyone, his own mother and brother barely being allowed to touch him. That for Day, his sense of touch is absolutely frantic. Which is why it’s so important for Mhok to constantly place his hands on him, not only to help lead him back into the world but to allow Day to recognize him by touch alone. And it’s being shown that he is, Day already knows Mhok’s voice and it’s touched a bit on the way he smells (ciggs) but this last episode is really starting to show how the touch of people is starting to fully affect Day, especially when he’s out of the house and how Mhok is instantly recognized even though he always follows up his touch with a vocal confirmation that it is in fact him that is touching Day.

So that hand stroking scene, the way Mhok runs the pads of his fingers gently up the centre of Day’s palm, how he strokes the back of his hand like it’s a kitten. That right there could genuinely feel like sex to Day, if not sexual in manner at the very least. The fuzzy look Day gets in his eyes, going from blank, to blissful to bashful and then finally awkward. It wasn’t just because of the fact that the dude he lowkey is starting to have a crush on is rubbing his hand in what I’m seeing being called a ‘weirdly intimate way’. It’s because Day’s body and brain is reacting to that touch in a way that people with all five senses might not completely comprehend, imagine your most intense erogenous zone (btw the palms of the hands are occasionally considered one) now imagine if that intensity was ramped up by ten, or twenty or even fifty and then imagine that that erogenous zone was suddenly everywhere. The most innocuous part of your body could bring you the most incredible sensations, both sexual and emotional, that’s what Day is feeling.

Mhok, now Mhok, he’s not stupid. Far from it in fact, he’s clued in on that not only is Day queer but also that he has a bit of a crush on him. Mhok has also quickly adapted to how he needs to teach Day to see the world in a new way, hence all the touching and smelling and reinforcement that Day can in fact do things for himself, including asking for help when he needs it. So Mhok knew exactly what he was doing with the hand rubbing, sort of. Did he know the sensation would be heightened, my best bet is totally. But did he expect to have his reaction to it go beyond that of teasing? Given his own bashfulness, doubtful. When you’re dating someone with a loss of one or many senses, you tend to change your own preconceived notions of what intimacy with your partner is. For some people offering a foot rub to their partner is a clear come on, an offer for something to lead to more. But for a blind person, especially a newly blind person like Day. They use their hands to navigate their entire world - you literally read with your fingers - so a blind persons hands are basically their most important tools in a lot of ways. To have someone touch your hands with such care, such reverence, it’s not just intimate, it’s full on foreplay.

Mhok wasn’t just touching Day, he was touching Day. It was meant to be seen as intimate because it was intimate, so intimate, in a way I don’t think either Mhok nor Day were expecting it to be because neither had ever experienced something like that before. That scene was truly the beginning of their relationship shifting, that hand scene was kind of like their first kiss.

Gifs by @wanderlust-in-my-soul

#last twilight the series #mhokday #morkday #jimmysea #nontraditional intimacy #for real tho #JimmySea played that scene so freaking well #this entire show makes me happy #to have some sort of queer representation that I connect with so well #like Day I totally get you bb #also sorry for yanking your gifs Wanderlust #hope you don’t mind :)

[littlebugs]

lady ren

summary: you're kylo ren's wife. the resistance thinks he's taking advantage of you, but little do they know... warnings: reader goes by she/her pronouns, short reader, major character death, no y/n use, reader was a jedi, kylo ren is a warning himself.

(my works are diverse to all races and ethnic backgrounds, as a mixed race girlie i feel yall's pain my fellow poc's)

a/n: i've been gone far to long, but i've discovered the beauty called kylo ren. also he looks so hot in that gif.... love dat emo space daddy.

When Rey first saw you, you were on Jakku. Surrounded by The Knights of Ren, you looked tiny, your arm latched onto Kylo's waist as he towered over you, looking brooding in his mask. You had vanished shortly after, but Rey had gotten a glance at you. Beautiful. Shiny hair, glowing skin. But not...evil. You didn't look like you belonged with the First Order. In fact, you gave off an aura somewhat like a Jedi.

Little did they know... you had been. You and Kylo were both trained under Luke Skywalker to become Jedi, and had become close friends, although Skywalker had tried to split you up. The darkness in Ben had slowly grown into you, and the night that Luke tried to kill him was the breaking point. You had ran and joined the First Order. At first you kept mostly to yourself. Following Ben- now Kylo, wherever he went. As he slowly gained respect in the First Order, and caught attention of Supreme Leader Snoke, so did you. You were both praised for leaving the Jedi, and soon people became afraid of Kylo... but they might as well have been more scared of you.

You were quiet, but you were also funny, even in the gravest of situations, which was somewhat disconcerting. Although you usually listened, rather than talked, when you did have something to say, everyone listened. Not to mention the fact that you bested some of the First Order's most prized soldiers. You were Kylo's closest confidant, his only friend, and the only one who could calm him down (especially when he decided to wreak havoc on some poor lab tech's control panel.)

It was no surprise when he asked for your hand in marriage, and you got engaged. Kylo wanted the wedding to be perfect, waiting to become officially married until you could both return to his home planet, Chandrila. But there was much to do before that.

Rey told Leia and Han of their son's mysterious mistress. The beautiful woman, standing in the heat of Jakku. Of course, they were shocked, at the mere thought of their son having... anyone. But intead of elation, as a mother might usually feel for a son, General Organa felt worry. She had no idea who this woman was, if her son was using her, or if it could be the other way around.

Han had been worried too. But it was his nature to be more curious. So when he first saw you, watching from a bridge above, guarded by two of The Knights of Ren, he had to wave, and you waved right on back. You tapped the ring on your finger and smiled, doing a little dance. But wherever you were, Kylo was always nearby, and as you watched Kylo storm onto the bridge to see his father, you grimaced and pointed at the flurry of darkness.

Rey and Finn watched you, perplexed, as to how someone could take the entire situation so lightly. "Who does she think she is?" Finn had asked, slightly annoyed. "I don't know" Rey replied simply, watching intently as Kylo approached his father, and you leaned over the railing slightly smiling.

Kylo turned back to look up at you, just before approaching his Han, and you audibly giggled. Rey had scoffed. Rey and Finn's eyes bounced between the scene unfolding before them, with you, talking quietly to the two knights, Ushar and Vircrul, and Kylo and Han, seemingly... rekindling?

And finally... Kylo took his helmet off. It dropped to the ground. He quickly looked at you, and you winked, biting your lip. Vircrul probably snorted (but he would never admit it.) And just as Kylo was about to shockingly give his lightsaber to his father...

Rey and Finn watched in horror as the lightsaber went through Hans. They were both frozen in shock, and looking up, expecting you to see the same. But you weren't terrified. You weren't even shocked. You simply smiled down on Kylo, and made your way down to see him. As Han's body fell of the bridge, you squealed in delight. You picked up Kylo's mask, rose up on your tippy toes to give him a kiss on the nose, and simply placed his helmet on his head again.

As Rey rushed to escape, followed by Chewie and Finn, she thought she couldn't have been more wrong about the Lady Ren.

#star wars #kylo ren #kylo ren x reader #kylo ren x you #kylo ren x fem reader #kylo ren x y/n #kylo ren imagine #kylo ren fanfic #kylo ren fluff #the force awakens #kylo ren blurb #kylo ren x wife reader

[phoenixlionme]

NOTE: I know that Charlie is looking at her father in the gif, I tried to find a pic or gif of her looking the other way but couldn't find it. So, I decided to use this given this is in the same song/scene.

I love this brief Chaggie moment in "More Than Anything" because of how Vaggie's shot in the song is so distinct from the others - Angel Dust, Husk, and Sir Pentious are in the darkness and even though Alastor and Niffty show up after Vaggie's turn, they are also in the shadows of the song. But Vaggie? She is entirely surrounded by the bright light. While Charlie does care and love everyone in the Hotel, Vaggie holds a special place in her heart. And I like to discuss the importance of this shot in three separate forms:

Foreshadowing - Given that it's revealed that Vaggie is a Fallen Angel, her being bather in light serves as a subtle bit of foreshadowing. Angels are often attributed to light and brightness.

Symbolism - As stated in the above paragraph, Vaggie is the one of the main cast featured most prominently in the light for this song; and from Charlie's POV, given the most focus as well. This all makes sense because it has been Vaggie who has always supported and believed in Charlie's dreams and ideas; while also being honest and realistic. Initially, the ONLY one in all of Hell to believe in her. While we don't know their full story about their relationship (aside from their first meeting), I hope (and feel) it'll get explored in Season 2. I think Charlie was in a dark place when she found Vaggie - mother gone, estranged from father, treated like a joke from her citizens, and it's implied she doesn't have any close friends aside from her parents and Razzle and Dazzle; not having a proper support system can wear on one's soul. Then, she rescues an injured Sinner (Angel); they start off as friends then girlfriends, and at some point Vaggie hears Charlie's dream' and maybe the Princess is once again expecting her newfound friend/crush to say it's impossible. But it doesn't happen; instead, Vaggie supports the idea. And Charlie is most likely blown away and falls a more in love with the one-eyed protector. I know given Vaggie's subtle moth theme, people say that she's drawn to Charlie's light, which is true, but so is the opposite - Charlie was drawn by Vaggie's light - not in the literal sense given her Angel heritage but in the symbolic light of hope.

Future Predictions?- I like to think that the aftermath of Season 1 which included Sir Pentious' death (until she learns of his ascension), stress from the Hotel, Lute's possible retribution, Lilith's possible chaotic return, the Vees' aggression, etc. It's all going to take a toll on Charlie, possibly pushing her optimism. Maybe leading to an emotional breakdown like she had in Season 1, but this time? Much worse. But it'll be Vaggie that guides her towards the light - another subtle possible foreshadowing was in the More Than Anything reprise where Vaggie pulls Charlie from the dark side of the hallway to the light.

#vivziepop #hazbin hotel #charlie morningstar #vaggie #chaggie #otp #otp analysis #otp appreciation #myotps #fan theories #my posts

[skullsuited]

hawaiian party.

inspired by this song.

gif credit.

an fbh!era/college!au imagine full of angst, humor, smoking weed, hiding in a bathroom at a party & grief.

content warning: marijuana usage, mentions of disordered eating, feelings of loneliness & dealing with a parent’s death.

This was the first time you'd been out since your mother's death. Unwillingly so, and yet, here you were, hiding in your best friend's bathroom at a college party. How depressing of you.

Nadia, your best friend and Alpha Theta's starry-eyed sorority member, had practically pleaded on the phone with you to come out and 'let loose', because 'your mom wouldn't want you to rot in your dorm room, eating M&M's and watching reruns of Grey's Anatomy'.

You hated that she had a point. You hated that this was what your life had come to.

Nadia had also mentioned that a few of your other friends would be attending the party and they had, apparently, mentioned how much they 'missed you' and 'wanted to see you'.

How could you say no to them? If you turned them down, you would be stuck in the same bottomless pit of loneliness, grief and M&M's.

For Nadia, for your friends and for your mother's memory, you had decided to attend the party at her sorority. Many of the people there, you didn't know or really bothered to speak to. As you arrived, you noticed a few of your friends lingering around. Niall was talking to Michael and Luke, Liam and Calum were playing spin the bottle with a few strangers, Nadia was nowhere to be seen and Harry was up against a wall, a joint in between his fingers.

He had been the first one to make eye contact with you, to notice your presence. A smile pulled at his lips and before you knew it, he was chasing you upstairs to the bathroom, racing after you as you tried to ditch the scene.

Which is where you are now: in the bathroom, sitting against the tub with Harry sat next to you.

"You've been away." He breaks through the silence between you, taking a drag from the joint he'd been puffing at.

"Yeah." You reply quietly, eyes cast downward, tracing over the tile.

"How, um... how have you been..." He trails off, trying to find the right words.

"Coping?"

Harry looks at you now, emerald eyes overcome with worry and concern for your wellbeing.

"Not very well. I haven't really... haven't really eaten properly. I mean, you know my relationship with food is..."

"A rollercoaster. Been that way for a very long time. I know."

You sigh, unsure of what to say. Of course, Harry knew. Other than Nadia, he was your closest friend. You'd met in high school and were inseparable ever since. Your fingers twitch towards the joint he's holding, and he hands it to you, watching you take a drag from it.

"Your mum was a good person, Y/N. I know she fucked up a lot of things, but one thing she was truthful about was how much she loved you."

"Y'know, what the really fucked up part of that is?"

"What?"

"I don't believe she truly loved me. I mean, after everything she put me through, how can you call that love?"

"Everyone has their own version of love, Y/N. Whether we understand it or not, is completely up to us."

A half-hearted smile tugs at the right corner of your lips. Harry's very emotionally intelligent and opening up to him, even if it's surface level, is helpful.

As you hand him the joint, a question brews in your mind, "What do you think? About love, I mean."

Harry chuckles, taking the joint from you. "I'd like to think that love is a word for a feeling no one can truly describe. I don't believe it's conditional or should be tied down to a person, place or thing. Love, like any other feeling, should be felt freely. Love is part of the human experience."

"Okay, Professor." You grin, "Maybe you should be studying psychology, become a therapist."

"Mm," He hums, "What have you been up to? Besides hibernating."

"I'm watching Grey's Anatomy again."

"Again? Christ, this is the third time!"

"I'm almost done with Season 11, believe it or not."

"Jesus. Do you not get bored of looking at Jesse Williams?"

"Never."

"Is that all you've been doing?"

"What, is wasting away in my bed, anticipating the next time Dr. Jackson Avery is on my screen, not a healthy way to cope with the fact that my mother's dead?"

"You're passively grieving, Y/N. Hell, I don't even think you've allowed yourself to fully process."

"These things take time, H. I can't just piece myself back together."

"S' not what I'm getting at, love. I think you're pushing your grief to the side."

"Harry..."

"If you need a reminder that you can come to someone, that you're allowed to shoulder the burden with someone else, I'm happy to give you one. You can't go through this alone, no matter how hard you try."

"You know just what to say, don't you?"

"Maybe I should become a therapist. M' quite good at it."

"Well, in that case, should I open up now or let you get your PhD first?"

"Don't bother. Dr. Styles is in."

"In all seriousness? Thank you, H... for letting me just... be."

"Don't have to thank me, love. M' always here. Now, why don't we get out of here, smoke a bowl in my car and get you a cheeseburger?"

"Sounds good to me, Styles."

Harry stands, the joint he'd been holding in between his fingers had burnt out. He tosses it in the trash bin near the toilet, before holding his hand out for you to take. You smile up at him, taking ahold of it.

Exiting the bathroom, you both weave through the party and head out into the night.

If there's anything your mom would have wanted for you, it was to have someone like Harry. Harry was supportive, thoughtful. He knew you better than you knew yourself and, at times, you were grateful for that.

With death, comes life. With life, comes love.

Perhaps, Harry would open your eyes to that.

You had hope that he would. That he will.

#harry styles imagines #harry imagine #harry styles #1d imagines #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fic #harry styles imagine #harry angst #harry styles angst #1d imagine #harry x y/n #harry x reader #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x reader #fbh!era #college!au #harry fanfic #1d angst #harry fluff #harry styles fluff

[guardian-angle22]

Tag Game Tuesday: 911 Lone Star Fandom Edition

Thank you for the tags! @thisbuildinghasfeelings @rmd-writes & @goldenskykaysani

When did you first start watching Lone Star? Who or what introduced you to the show?

I first started watching LS around the 2nd or 3rd episode of season 1 after seeing some adorable gifs of Owen & TK floating around on my tumblr feed.

I wish I could find out who patient zero was that first brought them to my attention from my follow list, but I think it must've been someone from the Skam fandom? maybe?

Which season is your favorite?

Season 3, baby!! and ngl, I highly doubt anything will top it at this point just based off where the plots have gone since.

Who is your favorite character? (Bonus: If you answered TK or Carlos, who is your favorite besides them?)

I mean - y'all knew what the answer would be to this one, right? Obviously Paul is my favorite. I do also really love TK. I know I have a reputation for loving Paul because I get very animated about him LOL... but I would like to put TK in my pocket and keep him safe forever, thank you.

Top five episodes. Go!

3.13

2.09

3.08

2.08

3.04

If you could pick any character to be given a "begins" episode, who would it be and what would that episode look like?

Paul. One hundred percent, I need it from Paul. I know everyone and their brother is going to or has answered Carlos for this and that tracks for a tarlos based fandom... but my unpopular opinion is that we've gotten quite a bit of character backstory for him this past season compared to some others like Nancy, Paul, and Marj. I feel like Paul has been part of the core group since the beginning but hasn't seen the amount of meaty plots as some of the others have. He's due!

What is a scenario or storyline that you would like to see in season 5?

Okay, I have two ideas for this: - an episode in which some of the characters who rarely interact are somehow trapped together due to some kind of emergency/disaster/storm and must navigate their way out together while the rest of the team helps from the outside. There are a few groupings we could use for it, but I personally would have the potential pairings be one of the following (or all three at once??): Paul & Tommy... TK & Grace... Judd & Carlos. I feel like these 3 pairings are people we don't get to see interact one-on-one often (or at all) and it would be super fun! - a true HEAT WAVE. they very briefly had that heat thing happen in 4x01 but I want a whole episode about a temperature heat wave and how first responders have to deal with them. this is TEXAS, c'mon. Plus the theme of heat throughout the episode could pop up in various character's stories. Tarlos = sexy heat. One of the firefighters = heat in the form of pressure in their job like a promotion of some kind. etc.

What do you think is going on in this still?

I have absolutely no fucking clue 😂 So I will instead direct you to this wonderful little spec fic by @littlemissmarianna As much as I hate everything to do with the Gabriel plot and tbh am not excited to see its continuation... if they manage to pull something off like that fic, I might actually enjoy some of it!

We all know about the elusive 5x05 spicy scene that has been teased, so what is your prediction for how it could possibly top 1x02?

... soooooooo I must confess something here...

*whispers* I don't actually know all about the elusive 5.05 spicy scene. someone needs to fill me in. I have not been paying attention to spoilers & speculation as much this time around since last season's speculation went so terribly for me 🤭🤣

Where was the Tarlos honeymoon in your mind?

Something about Carlos "getting homesick after a weekend in Branson" just tickles me. and the sarcastic way TK talks about the idea of Carlos wanting to travel the world also just amuses me to no end...

so this paired with the way the wedding went down, I think TK wouldn't want to make Carlos travel very far. or leave his mother so soon. I think TK wants his husband to feel as safe and comfortable as possible and so they spend a weekend at a nice spa/resort near Austin. Some place like this: Miraval Austin and then spend the rest of their honeymoon week bundled up together at home.

Shoutout one of your favorite fan creations.

for fics, I'm gonna be a little lazy here and link some of my previous themed fic rec lists:

but truly there are some wonderful fics in those lists!!! For some fanart: - this one by @whatsintheboxmh is one of my faves. ankle grab my beloved. 🥺🥰 - this one of s5 TK by @fitzherbertssmolder is so adorable! - this one of BUTTERCUP! by @greentealycheejelly is absolutely precious. - this one of Paul & Marjan!! by @heartstringsduet is amazingggg. give me all the paul fanart - this one of Grace by @yorit1 is stunning.

I'm not sure who has already done this, but I'm gonna tag some mutuals that I don't think I've seen it from yet (no pressure though!!) @lemonlyman-dotcom @herefortarlos @tkstrandreyes @three-drink-amy @littlemissmarianna @mikibwrites @alrightbuckaroo

#tag game #911 lone star #my gifs #long post

[trumpkinhotboy]

Chronic protective brother syndrome

Pairing: big brother!nick nelson x little sister!reader

Type: Request (thank you so much!!)

Warnings: Mention of fainting, having a chronic illness, but nothing too intense

Word count: 1900

Requests: Open! For Heartstopper, twilight wolfpack, chronicles of narnia and harry potter

A/n: honestly… i dont have much to say except that i love writing for requests and that big brother nick makes me weak in the knees. Hope you enjoy angels xxx

*gif is not mine

Summary: The reader has been living with diabetes her whole life. She's grown quite accustomed to it and manages it well with the help of her supportive family. Although sometimes, support can feel a little suffocating...

Through your 14 years of existence, you have grown quite accustomed to life with type 1 diabetes. As you grew up and became more conscious of what it meant to live with a chronic disease, you learned to accept and care for yourself quite well. 

Your mother, Sarah, was a real trooper and never let you down, always carrying you when you felt exhausted and done with your condition, which did happen more often than you care to admit. Luckily, you also had someone else in your corner: your older brother. 

Nick is known to be quite protective. Especially with the people he cares for. However, that aspect of his personality gained a new high when you were born, and your mother explained why you could never do everything just as he did. Of course, you would still be able to do most of them. You would simply need to be a little more careful. 

Sarah remembers very clearly the look in little Nick’s eyes when she explained why you were always sick. You were resting in bed after a substantial flare-up when his eyes welled up with tears. That's when he finally understood that there was something in your own body that would always try to fight and hurt itself. That’s also when he promised himself he would do everything to protect you. Your mum still tells that story with a few tears welling up in her eyes. 

Nick knew you could have a lot of complications from your disease. To avoid them, he always made sure you had everything you needed at all times. You usually didn't mind, seeing how your ADHD sometimes made it a little harder for you to remember to pack your stuff. Plus, the fatigue diabetes often fogged you with did not help in that department. 

The thing is you were now 14 years old, finally starting to make new friends and explore the jungle that is social life in high school. So when your 16-year-old brother comes over, and all your lady friends swoon over him, or worse, when he comes over to baby you, it gets a little irritating. Luckily, Nick was quite stubborn about that stuff and was not about to let you get hurt just because of the image you wanted to project.

That was until you made quite a scene in front of everyone.

You had been feeling particularly irritated and moody that day. So when you saw your brother walk over to you with a backup diabetes kit, which was his creation, you felt anger boil in your blood.

It did not help to hear some nasty year 10 make jokes from a picnic table near your friends and you. "Oh, would you look at that? Diabetes Nelson still needs her big brother to bring her her little drugs. I don't understand how someone like him could be related to her."

It was stupid. It wasn't even a good insult. Plus, the people who kept making comments were not something to be impressed with. Still, you couldn't help the shame from creeping on your cheeks.

So this time, when your big brother came to check on you and offered you your safety pouch, you refused.

"I already have the normal one. I don't need this one."

"I know, but I don't think you've put the new insulin shots in. I brought you the safety one just in case."

The snickers you heard from the people behind had you gritting your teeth. You couldn't understand their exact words, but you knew it wasn't positive. 

"Don't you have anything better to do than watch over me all day?" you hissed. "I'm not stupid Nick."

Your diabetes also made you prone to mood swings, mostly when your blood sugar levels were too high or low. That's why Nick usually did not make a big deal out of these outbursts, but this time felt different. Hurt flashed in his eyes, and briefly, you regretted the words.

"I never said that. I just want to make sure you have everything you need. You know the risks." His tone was soft, his gaze focused on you. He tried as much as he could not to make a big deal out of this, but your reaction had the exact opposite effect. He knew how the fear of being judged could make a person act in such a terrible way. 

"I don't need you to remind me how weak and useless my body is, okay? I'm the one living with diabetes, Nick. Not you." You whispered angrily.

You grabbed your bag and left him planted there without looking back. Nick and you were usually like two peas in a pod, and to leave him there hurt much more than you would care to admit. 

You got back in class, trying to act normal, but after an hour in, you felt queasy and feeble. You had indulged in some sweets some friends offered after your altercation with Nick, brushing off the risk with your ongoing anger. Subtly, you pricked your finger and couldn't help your eyes from growing two sizes when you saw the little numbers your tracker presented. You were in hyperglycemia and urgently needed to get a shot of insulin. Swiftly, you asked to be excused from the class and headed for the bathroom. The walls seemed to shake around you, and your vision kept warping up. Cursing yourself for being this dumb, you opened your bag with shaking hands, searching for your shots.

"Shit."

There was only one thing worse than fighting with Nick, and it was when you realized he had been right. You mumbled under your breath, trying to stay calm and figure out a quick solution because this was becoming urgent, and you needed the care right now. Calling Nick would do no good since he was at Truham anyway. You decided to head back to class to ask for your teacher's help, but once you tried climbing the stairs, a thousand little dots started dancing around. You were able to mutter an 'I feel kinda dizzy' before everything turned black.

You awoke to a commotion. Distorted sounds and everything around you moved too fast to register. Someone was holding your hand while you felt a pinch in your arm. 

"It's okay, it's okay Y/n. You're going to be okay. I'm here."

You knew that voice. You lifted your gaze with an effort and only saw a flash of red hair before darkness swallowed you once more.

This time, when you woke up, everything was silent and peaceful. You were lying in a bed, a hospital bed, with an IV drip set up in your arm. Nick was resting in the chair next to you, his worried eyes set on his phone as he quickly typed.

"Hey," you croaked. 

His head whipped up in surprise when he heard your voice. He immediately dropped his phone to come by your side. His hand flew to your forehead. The coolness of it felt incredibly refreshing as you leaned into the touch.

"Hey, kid," he whispered. He tried putting a smile on his face, but it couldn't hide the worry he was truly feeling.

"So, I'm guessing I fainted? And someone found me? And they panicked ?"

"Panicked is an understatement."

He explained that Imogen found you at the bottom of the stairs. She didn't know whether you had fallen from them or just fainted at the bottom, so she immediately called for help and texted him.

"I ran to Higgs faster than Charlie ever could," he added with a smirk, his joke stealing a chuckle from your chest.

"I'm sorry for causing such a commotion. I should wear a bracelet that says fainting is normal for me so people won't worry."

His gaze hardened at your comment. "Fainting is not normal for you. It's a bad sign, and you know it."

You sheepishly dropped your gaze. Okay, he wasn't ready to make jokes about it yet. Charlie would have laughed, you secretly thought.

"I don't understand why you pulled that crap. I just wanted to help you." 

You lay back in bed with a sigh and covered your eyes with your forearm. You did know Nick only wanted to help, but still. His kind gestures irritated you so much sometimes.

"It's already hard enough to be the sick kid. That was my only thing when I was in middle school. I thought now I could step away from it, that I could be someone else. Be known for other things than my messed up immune system." 

You noticed Nick's expression softened once you uncovered your eyes. 

"And I know you want to help and trust me, I appreciate it. It's just that sometimes it feels like you don't believe in me. Like you don't think I'm capable of doing stuff. Instead of helping me become stronger, you keep worrying me with your horror scenarios."

It was now Nick's turn to look all sheepish and guilty. You might have been right in saying he tended to get a little paranoid when you wanted to try new things. He only thought about protecting you. He never realized the effect it would have on your self-esteem. 

"I'm tired of being afraid. I've looked it up, and there are so many people with diabetes who are doing amazing things. I can stay healthy and still be a badass kid who tries new stuff."

He looked up, his eyes holding so much uncertainty and fear. Though through it all, love was the strongest thing in his gaze. He grabbed your hand once again with a tight smile.

"I hear you, I'm sorry. I never thought it would make you feel like this, or else I wouldn't have done it."

"Nick." You gave him a knowing look.

"Okay, okay. I might have still done it, but only because you're my baby sister, and I want you to be healthy and have a long, long life, okay?"

You nodded while tightening your grip on his hand. 

"I promise I will be less overbearing, and I will support you in whatever new thing you want to try."

"Thanks, Nick, and for school, could you maybe not come and do your big brother number in front of all my friends? I appreciate the gesture, but I'm over dealing with the dumbasses." 

He sighed heavily but still agreed to your request. "About that, just a piece of advice. I've learned that sometimes the thing we are afraid will show our weakness or vulnerability only does when we allow it to. Once you reclaim your power and own it, it all switches around. Anyone who has something to say about it will suddenly disappear, or you won't care what they have to say anymore."

You nodded sheepishly. You honestly didn't care about your diabetes. I mean, it could be a gigantic pain, and you would have to be careful for the rest of your life. But all in all, you were pretty lucky. You had your condition mostly under control when you weren't a sassy dumbass, and you had the best support system someone could wish for. 

"Look at me. You're going to be okay kiddo." Your brother squeezed your hand tighter in a reassuring motion. 

You lifted your head to meet his supportive gaze and smiled in return. Yes, you would be okay.

#ilya writes #nick nelson #nick nelson x little sister!reader #nick nelson x sibling!reader #heartstopper #heartstopper fic #nick nelson fic #nick and charlie #alice oseman #kit connor #anon request

[justanotherblogger]

JUST WATCHED EPISODES 7 AND 8 AND UNHOLY SH-

Look at all that Alastor LORE!!!!!

I AM SO EXCITED YOU DONT EVEN KNOW PEOPLE. WE HAVE BEEN FED WELL.

I also want to say that I was so freaking right in my first ramble about Alastor. Almost everything but his human life was freaking given to me in these episodes! I am very happy. Previous Ramble

*Ahem* Now, this is just a small analysis of Alastor scenes from both episodes, and I'll probably post my theories and stuff about it in a seperate post! I am currently frothing at the mouth. Obvious spoilers ahead!

Ok, so the first thing I saw was how Alastor jumped at the opportunity to go up to talk personally with Charlie.

Episode 7 thoughts:

I tried to steer away from sneak peak and spoilers, but I did get bombarded with little gifs of Alastor kicking his feet on Charlie's bed. Ruined the freaking surprise.

Anyways, Alastor obviously seemed to coerce Charlie into feeling rushed to a decision, which was obviously a deal with him.

I didn't expect him not to go for Charlie's soul. I saw so many people theorizing that was why he was at the hotel in the first place, and everything that lead up to Alistor finally making a deal throughout the other episodes, was a favor. A favor that didn't involve harm, no less.

This is still something very big, especially a favor from a princess of hell. I think the favor he needs eventually might be to help him break free of his leash, or to help protect him when he finally does in case things go south afterwards. Or maybe it could be a favor to somehow see how his mother is doing, the first much more dramatic, but I'd be happy with either.

Now there's Alastors demon form during the deal. Unholy cow, there's a lot to unpack. The first thing I noticed was Alastors FULLY STICTED smile. Like, entirely across. This could just be his true demonic from, or someone else did this to him to keep him smiling. From slipping up in his forced persona.

We also see how he can't stop smiling, even when by himself, drained of power, and hurt in his destroyed radio tower after the sngel attack. He rants and seemingly has a breakdown, but keeps smiling.

This could be how, like I said in my previous ramble, he uses his smile as a shield and as a defense for himself, like he stated to Charlie during the deal scene. Or, it's permanently there because it's just what he got stuck with in hell, or someone wanted to keep him smiling.

Speaking of which, the color is what's bothering me. There isn't much green in the pride ring other than Alastor himself. Almost every attack he's thrown has had green in it, with the crazy floating symbols, his explosions, and his void he controls has a bit of green. He can also invert colors. Why is that, when everything about him is red and black, matching the pride ring, his stitches and powers are green, like someone else's power.

There's also stitching all over his clothing, maybe as symbolism to keeping the persona up that the person who has his leash has made for him to play at the hotel.

Moving on to cannibal town, I adore Alastor and Rosie together. They bounce off each other well and just seem like real good friends. Love their dynamic! (Also, WOOOOOH! Canon Ace Alastor! Well, from Rosie. STILL THO! I am so happy, from a fellow asexual)

I was kind of sad when I realized Alastor could speak without his radio in hand when Charlie went singing with it as Alastor advertised the Executioner meat awaiting all the cannibals, with Charlie still holding the microphone. Would've been some entertaining stuff if he couldn't talk without it.

I don't really have much else to say about cannibal town, other than the Alastor comment near the end where it seems he's considering manipulating her to keep her on his side, to keep him on the winning one.

Now, episode 8.

This episode was a lot. In a good way, but still a lot.

Before the exterminators, everyone in the main cast was drinking, relaxing, and saying possible final goodbyes. Not Alastor. He was up on the balcony, watching the scene unfold.

They talk about how they enjoy the main casts company, and Alastor feels a bit sentimental as he admits he could get accustomed. Focus on the could part of that. He seems to imply he can't stay or things can't stay this way for long. Is it because of the reason he's at the hotel?

I do love Nifty and Alastor interactions. I wonder why they're so close compared to everyone else's relationship with Alastor in the main cast. Could they both be under the same leash, leaving some sympathy forbthe other? Or maybe Alastor just likes to see that gremlins shenanigans.

Now to the actual battle, Alstor was freaking peak at the beginning! His shield literally blocked off all angel interactions from the outside to keep the troops away, and it didn't even seem to tire out Alastor in the slightest!

The thing with him controlling those void tentacles to hold angelic weapons to kill the outsiders trying to break through is also just so cool to see because of Alastors ingenuity.

It took a strike from Adam just to break it, and I feel that's an accomplishment. For Adam to do something himself that all the other angels can't I feel is impressive, because he's not the head of the angelic army for no reason. I doubt heaven is that stupid to give a f-boy full control over the troops with no talent or experience to plan or lead them, at least.

Now for the Adam vs Alastor battle.

This had me at the edge of my seat, begging for Alastor not to be the one to be killed off this season.

I knew Alastor wasn't going to win, but he did have a good start. It seemed like he was toying and not taking this seriously, with full confidence in his abilities.

But that was until Adam finally got serious again, and broke his radio staff. His metaphorical (maybe literal based on his reaction) wall of defense.

This had me shook, as I saw my boy get beat in a couple of seconds. The radio staff was probably the source of at least a bit of his power from this person holding his leash, as he was worried enough about it to curse with no static in his voice during mid battle, leaving himself wide open. Or maybe this was just one of the times Alastor slipped up. It could also be the reason why he only used shadows, one of his only not-green abilities.

He still could move and talk, and I doubt he could attack or summon anything after being DIRECTLY HIT, POINT BLANK, WITH AN ANGELIC WEAPON, FROM PROBABLY ONE OF THE STRONGEST ANGELS IN THAT FREAKING EXTERMINATION, WHILE FREAKING SURVIVING AND GETTING BETTER THROUGHOUT JUST A COUPLE OF HOURS AT MOST.

(Also, shut up Vox. I know you freaking have the hate/obsession going on with the guy, but he probably lasted better than you could have, especially since you would've most likely been wire spaghetti after that hit from Adam)

I just realized that when rewatching, as before, I was just focusing on hoping he wouldn't be the one to die. But how did he survive that, and get pretty much better as soon as he got back to the radio tower? Maybe radio waves heal him, or he just has crazy recovery speed.

Now to the long awaited radio tower scene. I was hoping he would've gotten his own song by now, but maybe that shows how he needs someone else's push to be able to push on his own, like both his duets in the previous episodes.

Maybe we'll get an emotional song from him in the future. Crossing my fingers for that and a S2 as soon as possible!

Now the actual scene got me thinking. How Alastor is DEFINITELY under someone's control, as he also explicitly states it was a deal. Most likely for his soul, considering his want for freedom and to be able to do his own thing again.

I did see how Alastor was so desperate in his song snip about how he needs to find a way out of this deal he has made, with some of the most raw expressions we've seen of him to date.

But something did strike me. That on line from his song.

That's a bit of weird wording there Viv. Like, I know this is like an implication for his freedom, but imagine Alastor was a fallen angle or heavenly deity of some kind, like how the Cherubs got banished from heaven in Helluva Boss. Might explain how he didn't immediately die from Adams attack. (As you can see, I'm a bit delusional. But imagine if I was right tho)

But do imagine though, what this might imply for Alastor. How maybe the leash is holding something more than just his freedom, maybe how Alastor might've been even more powerful than he is right now, with the holder keeping some of his original raw power from his grasp, making him rely on their green power to survive and stay at the top.

The green light surrounding him with the line about him pulling the strings might also be how Alastor might want to take his holder's place, how when he's finally free from them he'll finally be able to take over that green with his own power, with his shadow.

I'm still wondering if Alastor is hiding side affects or pain from getting a beat down courtesy of Adam at the end there, as he seemed to take the most damage out of everyone while staying 'alive'.

Anyways, I need to wake up early tomorrow, and writing this in the middle of the night as it struck won't be pleasant for future me, but at least I could get all my thoughts together.

I am still obsessed with this deer man, if you couldn't tell already. I am so tired. If you saw any typos, no, you actually didn't.

#hazbin hotel alastor #hazbin alastor #alastor #alastor hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel spoilers #hazbin charlie #hazbin hotel niffty #hazbin hotel theory #I am still obsessed with this guy. #asexual #asexual alastor #hellaverse #hazbin #hazbin hotel thoughts

[valleyof-goldenlilies]

Se Zaldrizoti’ Prumia - Chapter 4: The Orange Lily Bends Its Head In Grief (Daemon Targaryen x Tyrell!Reader)

Chapter 4: The Orange Lily Bends Its Head In Grief 

The time comes for mourning, old memories and harsh truths. 

Se Zaldrīzoti' Prūmia Masterlist | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | 

HOTD Masterlist | Main Masterlist | 

Warnings: Extreme slow burn, angst, mentions of Aemma’s traumatic birth scene, Y/N kinda being a headass, Daemon being an ass, Viserys hate club 

Word Count: 2.8k words

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the House of The Dragon/Fire and Blood characters, save for Y/N Tyrell, although I did expand on their characterisation, which might deviate from canon. All credit for the characters goes to George RR Martin and the showrunners of HOTD. The GIF above is also not mine, original credit to the creator is stated above. Go check them out!

A/N: I’m sorry this chapter was later than expected 😭 i got a bit sick after the concert I attended yesterday (1975 was great but goddamn the crowd was inactive asf) I hope you guys enjoy this chapter! 

wonderful dividers courtesy of @firefly-graphics​  !  

The day was beautiful. The sun hung bright and brilliant in the blue sky, and the smell of salt and sand permeated through the air, along with a slight whiff of smoke from the magnificent dragon situated at the top of the hill, its beady eyes cast upon the crowd of mourners clad in black. 

You stared numbly at the raised dais where Aemma’s embalmed body laid. Little Baelon was next to her, and you couldn’t help but wonder how Aemma would have reacted, had she known the life that had been taken from her in the hopes of letting her babe live, was now naught but sand scattered in the wind: utterly useless. 

Rhaenyra stood next to you: the both of you keeping a fair distance from Viserys. Tears were welled up in her purple eyes, but she did her best not to let them fall, attempting to maintain her calm countenance. She reminded you much of yourself when you had lost your mother, mourning, and unsure on how to express your grief. 

Daemon spoke to Rhaenyra hushedly, the both of them conversing in High Valyrian. You did not deign to translate the faint snippets of their conversation that you overheard in your head, despite your decent grasp of the tongue. You barely noticed as Rhaenyra inched forward gingerly. 

“Dracarys!” You kept your eyes fixed upon Aemma and Baelon’s funeral pyre as it was set alight.. The hot whoosh of flames fanned across your face, and everyone took a step back unconsciously to avoid the heat, but you didn’t feel anything, not as you watched the body of your dearest friend and her ill-fated son burn away to naught but ashes. 

Daemon did not know what to make of today. Grief was a stranger to him: even though he had seen the deaths of his mother, father and grandfather, the depth of the feeling eluded him. Mayhaps there was something wrong with him: given how much death there had been in the later stages of his grandsire’s reign, it was a wonder he was unfeeling at funerals. Still, he found no sense in dwelling over the dead. The dead were the dead, and sorrow would not bring them back. 

He was about to depart from the cliffs, and mount a horse back to the Red Keep, when his gaze befell upon a most strange scene. His brother, and…Y/N? 

Rhaenyra had already ridden off on Syrax back to the Dragonpit, and most of the royal retinue had already retreated back to the Red Keep, unable to stand the sweltering heat, but his brother was here, talking to Y/N, who by now, was becoming ostensibly more and more like she would rather hurl herself off the cliffs than suffer in his brother’s presence for any longer. Viserys’ expression was earnest, mournful, and any man would have softened at the pitiful state the King was in, but Y/N seemed to have none of that. He wondered just what was going on, considering how Y/N was always close with his brother. ‘At least, she was always much more jovial with my brother than with me,’ Daemon thought darkly. 

“Brother,” Viserys turned to face Daemon as you breathed out a sigh of relief, glad to no longer be the centre of Viserys’ attention anymore. Try as you may, you could not shake the lingering sensation of disgust in your gut whenever you laid eyes upon Viserys. Your mind constantly kept flashing back to that horrific scene on Aemma’s deathbed, of the incisions and the realisation of what Viserys had ordered dawning on you when he couldn’t quite meet your gaze. What affection you had for your childhood friend was slowly dispersing into rage and grief, as you struggled to reconcile the jovial and amiable man you once knew with the reality of a man who was callous enough to sacrifice his wife to gain a son. 

Startled when you felt a hand placed firmly on your shoulder, steering you away from Viserys’ bewildered form, you glanced up at Daemon, but he said nothing as the both of you walked away from the King. After a while, when you had both reached the ends of the cliffs, he finally let go of your shoulder. The both of you were silent, staring out at the blue sea, as you both awaited for the other to break the silence. 

“Why did you pull me away from the conversation?” you murmured. “I could tell how uncomfortable you looked,” Although his gaze was directed towards the bay, Daemon’s voice was soft. “You were practically begging to get out of the conversation.” “And here I thought my many years at court had made me better at veiling my emotions.” “With how long we’ve known each other, byka zaldrizes, it would be an insult to me if I couldn’t see past your facades,” Daemon remarked dryly. He began strolling along the length of the cliffs, and you quietly followed suit. 

“...thank you. I…he may be my king, but I am of the opinion that if I had to suffer in his presence any longer, I might punch him.” you admitted, gratitude and exhaustion tainting my voice. Daemon let out a soft snort, “I thought you would have learnt that assaulting a royal never does you any favours.” “You’ve known me for so long, Daemon, in the face of anger, I never did seem to possess the ability to think rationally. What’s more, I think Viserys is deserving of it.” You could feel your heart starting to pound furiously again, the scene of Aemma laying in bed, covered in blood…brutally slit open, her eyes opened wide in death and her expression of agony flashed repeatedly into your mind, making your stomach roll unpleasantly. Tears prickled at the corner of your eyes, and. you bit your lip in an attempt to stave them off, tilting your head away to obscure Daemon from the view. He said nothing, only offering you a handkerchief. You took it, dabbing at your tears lightly, trying to calm yourself by inhaling the salty scent of the sea air. 

Daemon watched her with inquisitive eyes. He had heard rumours of how close Y/N was with his sister-in-law, but with the weight of her grief becoming increasingly apparent, he finally understood the extent of their bond. His heart filled with a strange tugging sensation, but he dismissed it as just the oddity of seeing Y/N cry. In his boyhood memories, he always regarded her as this strong-willed, fierce and irritable little girl. To see her cry was…it made him feel strange. The Y/N of his boyhood seemed so contrasting from the Y/N in front of him now. He had seen Y/N’s physical changes since girlhood, and now he was witnessing the emotional changes. Uncomfortable, he fidgeted with his fingers, about to offer his condolences, but he remembered how much she hated it when he professed his grief at her mother’s passing, and stopped himself. The sight of Y/N dabbing at her tears however, became more and more excruciating for him to bear with every passing minute. He longed to do something, anything, to lighten the tension between them, but what could he say? It wasn’t like comforting his niece, with the Queen that she was serving dead, Y/N might as well have been a sailor lost at sea, with no compass. So instead, he had to bite his tongue as he waited for Y/N to snap out of it. 

You clasped the handkerchief tightly between your fingers, suddenly feeling the traces of embroidery on it. You glanced at the handkerchief, and saw a familiar pattern of lily flowers across the fabric, in your stitching. “I didn’t know you still kept it,” you turned to Daemon, surprised. “I thought you would have shredded it years ago.” “Well, it would be rude of me to intentionally ruin a gift, especially one made of a gesture of goodwill, my lady.” 

Your fingers traced the orange lilies, biting back a smile at the memory behind this handkerchief. Once, in your childhood, you had been most wroth to discover Daemon had stolen your favourite doll and ‘accidentally’ ripped it. In retaliation, you had snuck into his room one night and emptied the contents of his chamberpot on him. Aghast, your mother had ordered you to make a truce with him by sending him a gift. Reluctantly, you sewed him a handkerchief, but to add insult to injury, you didn’t embroider a noble or rare flower on it, such as roses or carnations, but rather, you had chosen lilies. Although it was considered a flower of elegance, the colour of the lilies conveyed otherwise. To put it plainly and unpleasantly, they were one gigantic “fuck you” to Daemon. You couldn’t help but snigger as you recalled his reaction to the handkerchief: his face had twisted most unpleasantly, and he’d looked downright murderous, but since Prince Baelon and your mother were in the room, he could only swallow whatever insults he wanted to churn out and grunt out his thanks, much to your triumph. 

The lilies had turned a little yellow with age, regardless, the handkerchief looked well kept. You returned the handkerchief back to him, his fingers brushing against yours in a lingering touch as he took it back. “For what it’s worth…I am truly sorry for your loss, Y/N,” Daemon offered gallantly, “I know how close you are…were…with my sister-in-law, and she was a great woman. She was always kind to me, at least.”. Normally, you would have teased him for his uncharacteristic politeness, but Aemma’s death had drained all the fight left in you. “I thank you, my Prince,” your voice was hollow. 

Your next few moments were spent in silence, as awkwardness ensued. Daemon was nigh close to throwing himself off the cliffs. He was thoroughly unaccustomed to dealing with grief. He wonders if he had made the right decision when he chose to spirit you away from Viserys. At least the royal party had departed now, but it made it all the more difficult for him to leave Y/N alone on the cliffs. 

“Do you know…what he did?” your voice was tremulous, barely a whisper, but it anchored Daemon back to reality once more. His forehead creased, he said quietly, “I’ve heard. It was…dreadful to say the least.” “Truth be told, I do not know if I could ever…bring myself to forgive his act of cruelty.” “He is your king,” Daemon said, an uncharacteristic gentleness in his voice. “And your friend of many years.” "As was Aemma, Daemon,” you said, your voice tinged with sadness. 

Wishing to broach on this topic no more, you turned your conversation to something else. “Now that he killed both his wife and heir, what do you suppose would happen to the succession now?” Daemon notes with intrigue that your tone has taken a sharper tone toward Viserys, and he couldn’t fight the small sliver of smugness he feels at your distaste. Perhaps it was childish…but he always disliked it when you spoke about Viserys with such reverence, like he could do no wrong in your eyes. 

“He still has an heir,” Daemon reminds her, “Me.” 

You scoffed slightly, “I think you’re forgetting Rhaenyra. She is the King’s only trueborn daughter.” Daemon was annoyed, “A brother’s claim triumphs over a daughter’s.” “You’ve never paid any attention to the laws of Andal succession then.” “We are Targaryens, byka zaldrizes, what regard have we for those fucking laws?” Daemon snorted, “Moreover, Rhaenyra is but a child, besieged with grief. The right choice of heir for the stability of the realm should be me.” 

“You’re just using Aemma’s death as a way to further your own ambitions,” your tone was accusatory, and Daemon wanted nothing more than to shove this infernal woman off the cliffs. Why did everyone always think the worst of him? “I can assure you, that contesting the heir to the throne is the least of your worries right now.” 

You narrowed your eyes, “And what is that supposed to mean?” Daemon let a smirk play out on his face, “Now that my sweet sister-in-law is dead, what do you suppose will happen to you?” You blinked, confused by his sudden mention of your future. “I’m not sure what you’re referring to, Daemon.” 

“You are well aware that since your tenure as lady-in-waiting to the Queen is at an end, you will most likely be sent home to the Reach, do you not?” Your voice grew annoyed, “My focus now is on mourning Aemma, she was my friend, Daemon. As for what the future holds, I do not care about that.” Daemon let out a snort of laughter, “Are you sure about that, Y/N? It might not be the wisest course of action, you know.” 

You stopped in your tracks and gave him a frosty glare, “And since when did you care about my wellbeing, Daemon?” Daemon chuckled mirthlessly, “I do not. However, since my late sister-in-law harboured a form of affection for you, however of an annoying little brat you may be, I believe it in my responsibility to give you a warning.” “I have no need for your warnings,” you said brusquely. 

Daemon leaned forward, his violet eyes gleaming with savage delight, “Perhaps you should think again then.” He drew back, circling around you as his eyes watched you like a hawk. “With the Queen dead, it would be inevitable before you are summoned back to Highgarden. Tell me, what are you to do when you are ordered to wed by your father, hmm?” 

You bit your lip, disconcerted. But it was all the answer Daemon needed to carry on. “You no longer have any reason nor power to retain your status at court,” he mused, looking down at your stiffened form. “And when it comes, your father will summon you back to Highgarden. And you shall be wedded off like a prized pig to some lord, who could be balding, old, or ill-tempered. Or all three. Who knows?” He hears your sharp intake of breath, and he could see it clearly now. Your fear for this sort of fate. 

“Whether you like it or not, you must worry for your political standing. Even if you hate to make merry with my brother, you will have to stomach it.” You finally snap, your eyes ablaze, “I will not. Why should I give a damn about my political standing anyway? Should I refuse to go home, my father will not force me. The King will not force me.” 

Daemon laughed, the sound bouncing off the cliffs. It was a rough, jagged laugh, more out of dark bemusement than of any joy. “Byka zaldrizes, it seems you’re even more of a fool than I imagined. You might have matured in terms of your visage, but I see your immaturity still shines through.” 

Hurt by his words, you could only keep silent. Your mind was racing. You didn’t want to admit it…but you could see some truth in his words. Viserys could heartlessly give the order for his wife to be cut open, he would not defend you from something as simple as marriage. He was after all, a father, and a king to boot. He would sympathise with your father’s claims of duty to your house. 

Daemon’s voice was chiding as he spoke. “There is no doubt my brother will take a new wife after this. After that, there will be a new queen in court, a shift in power. And you?” he reached out to tuck a loose strand of your hair behind your ears. “Will be naught but a speck in the past. The new queen might be someone you are not acquainted with, and she will surround herself with an entourage she is familiar with. One which you will not be a part of. Who will protect you from your father’s will then? Certainly not my brother, if I know him.” 

You saw the sense in his words, but a certain sort of rebellion still blazed in you. “I would never allow myself to be used by my father this way,” you said, lifting your chin defiantly. “I am a grown woman now, and I can make my choices.” 

Daemon looked down at you, something akin to pity on his face. “If that’s what you think,” Daemon’s voice was soft, “Then you are a naive fool, my lady.” Abashed by his words, you could only look down, feeling lost. It was too much for you to deal with: mourning Aemma and Baelon, your newfound disgust and fear for Viserys, and now, terror for your future. You couldn’t deal with this. Not right now, maybe not ever. You weren’t used to this sudden weight of realisation, of burden on your shoulders, and Daemon could tell. He always could. 

The two of you stewed in despondent silence, before Daemon sighed, “Come, my lady. I should escort you back to the Red Keep.” You have a great deal to think about, his violet eyes seemed to whisper to you, making you feel even more unsettled. You nodded hesitantly, and he offered you his arm, before the both of you walked back to the remaining wheelhouse in a silence that was much colder and contemplative than before. 

Taglist for Se Zaldrizoti’ Prumia: @drwho-ess @graniairish @urmomsgirlfriend1 @thelittleswanao3 @animelover18 @llovinjoonie @gracielikegrapes​ @salembridger

Daemon General Taglist: @aiyaiy​

those who are bolded are the ones that couldn’t be tagged! let me know in the comments or through this form 

and that makes chapter 4! chapter 5 should be released in around 2-3 days time! do let me know what you think in the comments! if you liked this chapter, comments and reblogs are highly appreciated 💗 thank you for reading! 

#se zaldrizoti prumia #sezaldrizotiprumia_masterlist #aureliawrites #Daemon Targaryen #prince daemon #prince daemon targaryen #daemon x y/n #daemon x reader #daemon targeryan #daemon x you #daemon x fem!reader #prince daemon x reader #daemon targaryen x reader #daemon targaryen x oc #daemon targaryen x y/n #daemon targaryen x female reader #the rogue prince #house of the dragon #house of the dragon fanfic #hotd #hotd fanfic #hotd fanfiction #hotd x oc #hotd x reader #hotd x you #hotd x y/n #hotd daemon #hotd reader insert #hotd fandom #daemon x tyrell!reader

[wereoz]

rewatching s1&2 and seeing the spencelle interactions has made me believe new things about their relationship. bear in mind i think a lot of things surrounding romance are very ambiguous so it’s hard to define the stages in a relationship but i think it mostly goes like this:

i think while neither had any strong feelings before ‘derailed’, all their interactions built the foundation and there was chemistry, like elle trying to get everyone to not talk about reid failing his firearms qualification and them hanging out in garcia’s office that ep.

then in ‘derailed’, while the stakes are high, their feelings come to the surface and are tested: so while reid hasn’t initiated much with elle, he says ‘it’s alright, elle’ in a tone i can’t really describe - tender? reassuring? and after, he’s the one sitting close to her, joking with her, rubbing her knee (such a cute interaction).

elle during this ep is the same, she has already shown interest (in my opinion) but it increases to me as she’s quite timid saying he saved her life, and is concerned for him, trying to ask about him saying he ‘knows what it’s like’ being delusional.

so: feelings have developed on both sides.

however, i think afterwards the course of those feelings is different for elle and reid. i noticed that elle, in the next ep, gives reid a look that is very affectionate (and very gif-ed on tumblr), and she is the one who was quite jealous while reid was with lilah for that ep, which makes me believe that elle had become aware of her feelings, and they were closer to her because of that. of course, her job is very important to her so she can’t date a coworker -remember the fraternisation rules?- and i feel like her being older means she can control and hide her feelings better than when reid realises

wheras reid is continuing on as normal, even …. well not ‘pursuing’ lilah he was the one being pursued 😭 but? open to it? so i think that being so young, a character who finds accessing his emotions to be difficult, and having become self sufficient at a young age, his feelings aren’t intruding and he can continue on without thinking he likes elle romantically. just to say: i don’t think this means he doesn’t care about elle, i just think he’s a 24 year old who needs… room? he’s barely had any romantic experience yet, and he’s been isolated from his peers which makes social connections difficult; he needed time anyway.

(also: reid -similarly to elle- needs this job, i feel like dating a coworker feels veeeery off limits for him)

then the fisher king……. dear god…..

HOWEVER post fisher king, in s2 the theme is ‘develop spencelle right before they breakdown so it hurts more’: upon reid and elle interacting for the first time in 4 months, they seem utterly besotted. they say ‘if it isn’t dr reid’ and ‘wow… elle’ so nervously, followed up by them awkwardly and sincerely complimenting each other’s hair, while reid is nervous elle doesn’t like it….. wow.

i take reid’s behaviour as: during those 4 months without elle, it set in how much danger elle was really in, and that he almost lost her, which he didn’t have energy to confront after being more concerned about his mother in the fisher king eps (understandable). and, similarly to how ‘derailed’ shifted his feelings, he changes again to more concerned about elle, and conscious of her.

reid and elle are forced to be in proximity as he has been assigned to watch over her……. i love this for many reasons because reid has no control over her at all so she’s really taking him for a ride, they have really cute interactions (‘no i didn’t!’ ‘yes you did!’) and i think it was a great way to develop them by giving an obvious reason for spending more time together. (also they just look so cute together…..<33)

AND NOW for a moment that brings me great fucking emotion (it’s sweet & romantic but heartbreaking :(( <//3) the hotel scene!!

what stands out to me first is the few seconds before the hotel scene, when reid is alone in his room and fidgeting nervously. it was shown after everyone else working on the case, so the implication is that was what worried him until he dashes out of the room to see elle - he was so worried about her!!! he was also one of the only ones and the first one who went to her about her being attacked, so once again: he’s really changed the dynamic, and he’s very involved here.

so heartbreaking that what made him realise he likes elle is the reason they couldn’t be together…. <///3

#s2 reid my down bad king #almost lost his gf and came crawling on his knees for her AS HE SHOULD #cm #criminal minds #spencelle #reidaway #dr spencer reid #spencer reid #elle greenaway #reid #elle #my posts

[shizukateal]

Grimm Variations - Episode One Review: Cinderella

Ok, starting with the heavy hitter aren't we Grimm Variations? Really have that much confidence in yourself in spite of your kinda ugly art direction? Ok. Alright. I see how it is.

GATHER 👏 ROUND 👏 CHILDREN 👏 LET'S 👏 TALK 👏 ABOUT 👏 GOOD 👏 VS 👏 BAD 👏 SUBVERSION 👏 SLASH 👏 DARK 👏 TAKES.

This is actually a pretty fascinating example, since it has both cases simultaneously.

(sorry for the shitty gif, I don't know how to reduce size without sacrificing quality)

Let's start from the beginning: This version of Cinderella takes place somewhen at the intersection of the Meiji and Showa Periods in Japan, which is to say in the Roaring 20's. Instead of our usual protagonist, the story centers on Makiko and Sawako our prospective Evil Stepsisters, as their mother Tsuruko, a former geisha, marries Viscount Otawara, who has a single daughter: Kyoko. Kyoko enthusiastically welcomes her new family with open arms, even gifting precious things to her new sisters, who clearly love the luxuries of the social ladder that they've climbed. However things take a turn for the dark as Kyoko starts manipulating everyone around the house with wounded gazelle gambits to convince them that her sisters are mistreating her and usurping her place. The story thus becomes about Makiko and Sawako going to the ball (hosted by a count's son) to try and escape their Evil Little Stepsister.

There's also some background stuff at the start of the episode about the brothers grimm and that little girl Charlotte up there, who appears as a living doll of Kyoko's, but since none of that is explained here we're just gonna focus on what this dark take says thematically about the tale of Cinderella.

Right from the beginning the overturn starts when the first scene makes it clear that Cinderella's dad holds all the power in the relationship with the Evil Stepmother, whereas the Grimm and Perrault versions make her the one wearing the pants. It's never explicitly stated in either of them, but it's natural to infer that the Stepmother is of a higher peerage than Cinderella's Dad to explain how she would hold power over him and his daughter when trying to rationalize the story, and it's a common plot point in adaptations. However, this alone a subversion does not make. After all, if you read trashy romance in aristocratic settings (like I do), you know that it is extremely common for social climbers to be presented as sniveling usurpers, who get arrogant and greedy and turn into bullies the moment they have a modicum of luxury and rank in spite of their Inferior Manners (unless they are the protagonist of course). Lots of Cinderella stories follow that formula.

And that's exactly what Kyoko uses against her stepsisters.

Makiko and Sawako are stupid. If their unrefined manners are forgivable and a simple matter of environment and time, the way they openly slobber over and covet the riches of their new house makes them no favors. When they think one of the servants stole jewelry from them (and it was a piece that Kyoko had given them at that) they immediately get angry and physically aggressive towards a person whom they were equal in rank perhaps mere days ago. It takes them too long to stop and realize that hey, no servant would openly flaunt a piece they'd stolen from their master, so maybe something else is afoot, but by then it's too late. The other servants of the house can no longer trust them, so of course they continually take the side of the poor, defenseless little mistress Kyoko.

The tale so turns into an interesting mix of one-part hitchcokean aristocratic horror-thriller, impulsed in part by the flaws of the protagonists, and I'd say around a quarter-part view into the hypocrisies of class. Makiko and Sawako's refusal to engage with the servants with respect and compassion, trying to act the rank they've ascended to, cuts them from a support network, even as they are handed wealth and luxury. However it is undeniable that because of their lowly origins and etiquette people view them with scorn, distrust, and antipathy, a fact that is driven home when they are the ones who get mean whispers and comments upon entering the ball. They don't stop from being victims in the narrative just because they aren't likeable. By contrast, Kyoko may wear old plain clothes and do house work, but because she's nice to the staff and is seen as the legitimate blood heir, everyone looks at her with compassion and chucks her unnaturally cheery disposition towards her circumstances to good breeding, to the point that she gets away with poisoning her stepmother for years until she dies.

Likewise, at the scene of the ball the sisters fail spectacularly at captivating their prospective Prince with their uncouth behavior, so all our Cinderella has to do is be pretty and make a scene in front of everyone for things to take its predestined course. Tsuruko dies that night thanks to her stepdaughter forcibly feeding her one last cup of bleach before she leaves. And even though everybody witnesses the sisters grieving over their mother's corpse, nobody has sympathy for them the next day, when Makiko becomes the head of the family at Kyoko's (clearly secret) behest. The moment the Prince appears and declares his intention to marry Kyoko, Makiko and Sawako are expediently given the boot to the ass and thrown out of the house. Thus both of them are forever expelled from aristocratic society... and forever free from Kyoko.

Cinderella has followed her usual course of ascending to a higher to a social strata while reclaiming her lost position thanks to the intervention of a powerful man... But it's the Evil Stepsisters who have escaped an abusive situation by leaving the comforts of status behind, which goes very specifically against the message the original story gives. What's more this is due to their own character development: they knew that Kyoko would sabotage them if they tried to escape her via marriage, so they baited her into pulling a stunt and deliberately sabotaged their own chances with the Prince so that he would take her away from them.

THAT, my guys, is actual subversion. THAT is commentary. It's impeccably brilliant...! Or at least it would be were it not for the biggest flaw in the story: Cinderella herself.

Near the end of the first act the sisters try to warn their mother about Kyoko's nefarious acts. Of course, she doesn't believe them. After all, she asks outloud, what does Kyoko get out of acting like that? It seems that the scriptwriter didn't realize that asking that question explicitly in dialogue would put it at the forefront of the audience's thoughts before the whole thing went into print.

I mean the script makes Kyoko talk about her family being her precious "dolls" or whatever but that explains absolutely jackshit when her attitude is so inconsistent. Keep in mind, this Cinderella kills her own dad when he unwittingly threatens to disturb her status quo and starts the second act by saying out loud that she fears the situation she's created might end, but after the sisters do succeed in suckering her she just goes "oh well :) thems the breaks" and it's implied she'll move on to torturing the Prince for shits and giggles and that's it.

Alas, however, I must be fair and truthful in my final assessments. I came into this series expecting vapid edginess and mediocrity and while it hasn't exactly disappointed on that front, it has just enough thematic juice to move into the tier I was most afraid of: trash but still good enough to be frustrating. Join me next week for more suffering if it keeps up this way.

#grimm kumikyoku #grimm variations #cinderella #anime review #episode 1 #everyone reblog this it is LITERALLY my birthday at the time of posting this #CLAMP

[bella-rose29]

Reminders of her - George Karim x gn!reader

requested by anon: George Karim x reader (established relationship) where one of the Visitors they have to seal is the reader’s dead mom or sister or father (whichever you want)

I am so so sorry that this has taken me forever to write, I have been swamped with assignments and work and then a period of no imagination whatsoever, so I'm very sorry about that anon! I also had no clue how to end it so sorry about that too

I tried to make this gn (since no gender was specified), but there may be a slip up or two so I'm sorry if there is <3

Hopefully this is roughly what you wanted anon!

Word count: 1.7k

Warnings: mentions of character death (reader's mother) and dealing with grief, mentions of cancer (non-specific, but it's not aggressive).

Tag list: idk who wants to be tagged for George tbh (let me know if you do!) <3

(not my gif)

The inhabitants of 35 Portland Row were all relaxing in their various rooms when the doorbell sounded, startling everyone.

Lockwood hurried to the door, trying his best to not look too disgruntled in front of a possible client, but when he pulled the door open to see Y/n he gave up trying to rub the tea stain off the bottom of his shirt.

"Oh, hi. Everything alright?" They didn't say anything, head dipped so that Lockwood couldn't see their face, but when he heard the slight sniffles coming from Y/n he ushered them inside, immediately calling for George. Lockwood wasn't the best at dealing with people crying, and he'd had to learn for his job, but given Y/n was George's partner he figured he had a free pass this time. The boy in question came thundering down the stairs barely a minute later, pulling his jeans all the way up as he did so and fastening his belt before bringing Y/n into a crushing hug. Lucy appeared at the top of the stairs, peering at the scene in front of her, and when she saw her best friend crying she hurried into the kitchen to start making tea. Lockwood was left to stand awkwardly to the side, hands stuffed in his pockets while George comforted his partner.

"What's wrong, Y/n/n?" George asked, pulling back slightly to wipe away their tears. They sniffled a little bit, small sobs still breaking through as their chest heaved, trying to get the words out.

"It's- it's my mum," they broke off into tears again, hiding their face in George's t-shirt. "She- she's, uh... I need your help," they finished in a whisper, turning to look at Lockwood, and suddenly everything made sense.

"Where is she?" Lockwood asked softly, making eye contact with George. The two boys led Y/n into the kitchen, sitting them down at the table and providing a plate of biscuits (George was a compete hypocrite about the biscuit rule when it came to his partner). Lucy brought over a cup of tea, placing it down in front of Y/n with a small smile.

"Sort of just... everywhere. In the whole house. I don't know why she's only just turning up now, she's been dead for eight months."

"It doesn't always make sense," George said, pushing his glasses up. "We can come over tonight if you like, right Lockwood?"

The company head nodded, sympathetic smile on his face when Y/n looked his way, and Lucy murmured her agreement.

"That's decided then. We'll come over tonight and try and put her to rest completely, yeah?" Lockwood declared, and Y/n nodded, wiping the last of their tears away.

"Yeah, alright. Thank you."

~~~

That night, just before sunset, the four of them headed over to Y/n's house (the members of Lockwood and Co had refused to let them go back, insisting that they stayed until they were properly cheered up), kit bags slung over shoulders and rapiers at their hips. Y/n went without, having barely any Talent, clutching the silver rod that George had gifted them as a defence. Lucy and Lockwood strode ahead, George hanging back with Y/n as they dawdled.

"You alright?"

"I don't really know. I mean, she died of cancer, so that shouldn't really mean that she comes back as a Visitor, right? She died in her sleep, peacefully, and spent her last couple of months seemingly happy."

George was quiet for a while, debating what to say. He often had a habit of putting his foot in it, being the socially awkward person that he was, and dating Y/n had meant that he'd found himself thinking before he spoke much more. At first, he'd barely spoken to them when it was just the two of them, being too scared that he'd say something wrong and never see them again, but when they'd admitted that his blunt attitude was one of the things they most adored about him, he'd opened up more. Still, in situations like this a little thinking was required, especially since his partner's dead mother coming back as a ghost was the topic of conversation.

"Generally, Visitors seem to come back for unfinished business. Maybe she just wants to say good bye?"

"She had months for that though." Y/n was worrying their bottom lip in their teeth, a habit that had become more frequent since their mother's death.

"I really don't know, Y/n/n. Once we're there, though, I'm sure I will," he said, offering a small smile as they turned down their street. Y/n tried a smile of their own, but the worry was still there, growing with every step closer to their house the agents got.

"Come on you two, we're losing time!" Lockwood called, and George rolled his eyes.

"Ignore him. Those two can do without us for a bit if they need to. You alright? You're looking a bit pale."

"I- I'm fine, Georgie. I'm just... not really looking forward to this."

"I get it. Hey," he called, brushing his hand against Y/n's. "We'll sort it, yeah?" He linked their hands, and Y/n smiled properly, the action lighting up their face.

"Yeah. Thank you, George," they replied earnestly, planting a kiss on his cheek.

~~~

Y/n was worried.

It had been an hour since Lockwood, Lucy and George had set up, and while Y/n stayed in the kitchen, surrounded by the defences and armed with the silver that George had handed over earlier ("Just in case," he'd said, no hint of humour in his expression), the three agents had been eerily silent. They'd heard the creak of an occasional floorboard, and a whisper of voices from the living, but aside from that anybody observing the situation would think that Y/n was alone in the house.

They had zoned out a few minutes ago, getting bored of standing and waiting with nothing to do, when suddenly a figure appeared in the doorway.

"Mum?"

Their voice was shaking, damn it. Y/n had promised that they wouldn't get too scared, but the possibility of seeing their mother (and the further chance that their mother would try and attack them) was terrifying.

The figure crept closer, glowing faintly, and Y/n held their breath. It stopped just inside the doorway, and distantly Y/n heard themselves calling for George. Everything else was a haze. Time seemed to stop as the two of them observed each other, and while Y/n could feel a chill creeping up, the warmth they felt at seeing their mother's face again made it seem insubstantial. The trance was broken when Y/n was shoved to the floor, George landing on top as Lockwood and Lucy fought back against the now violent ghost of Y/n's mother.

"Are you alright? Y/n? Y/N?"

"Stop shouting! I'm fine," they huffed, unsure why George seemed so panicked.

"You were very nearly permanently ghost-locked, idiot!" Y/n's eyes widened.

"W-what? But I was fine! I didn't- I didn't think I was there for that long, was I?"

"Maybe, maybe not, but when we came in you were glazing over. I tried calling out to you but you weren't responding."

"Oh, so that's why you rugby tackled me to the floor." George leapt into action again at that, pushing up and offering a hand out to Y/n. Lockwood and Lucy had found the Source, and now the agency head stood with a small object wrapped in a silver net. "Is that... is that her?" Lockwood nodded.

"A comb, of all things. Luce says it was her favourite?"

"The one with the fake pearls in it?" Y/n asked, unable to tear their eyes off of the object.

"Yeah, looked like it. She um, she showed me something else," Lucy spoke, a little tentative. Y/n gestured for Lucy to continue, and the girl lead the two of them upstairs to their parents' bedroom. "There was a moment when she uh, she pointed to this drawer. There was a letter inside, addressed to you. I think she wrote it for you, and wanted you to have it. Did you know about it?"

Y/n shook their head. "No. I had no idea." Carefully they opened the drawer and lifted out the envelope inside, trying desperately to hold back the tears at seeing their mother's handwriting.

"Do you... do you wanna read it now? Because I can give you some space if you do," Lucy asked gently, placing a hand on Y/n's shoulder.

"Please, thanks Lucy." The girl wrapped them in a hug, tight and crushing, and when she pulled away she wiped the tears off of Y/n's cheeks.

"We'll be in the kitchen if you need anything, alright?" Y/n nodded, sitting down on the bed when Lucy had shut the door behind her with a soft click and opening the letter.

~~~

A short while later a knock sounded on the door, and George's messy curls poked in, followed by the rest of his body. "Hey, how are you doing?" He came over and sat down next to them, placing an arm around their shoulders and bringing them in for a slightly awkward hug.

"I'm okay. I think," Y/n frowned.

"What... what did the letter say?"

"Just about how much she loves me, and how proud she is of me. It's funny, it doesn't feel like she's gone a lot of the time, but every now and then I'll see something that makes me think of her and I just... I have to stop myself from breaking down." They paused for a moment. "The paper smells like her. It's nice to have this, as a reminder of her."

George didn't say anything, instead just stroking their back, and they were glad for the comfort. He might have a tendency to say the wrong thing sometimes, or accidentally offend people, but George was a damn good partner, and Y/n was glad that he was there to help them.

The two of them headed downstairs a few minutes later, finding Lockwood and Lucy arguing about what the best kind of biscuit was over cups of freshly made tea. George joined the argument, gesturing wildly as he fought for his biscuit of choice, and Y/n could only chuckle slightly at their partner's antics. They gladly accepted the mug of tea that Lucy pushed their way, and smiled at the three agents gathered in their kitchen.

Their mother might be gone, leaving a hole in Y/n's heart, but these three people in front of them were just what was needed to fill it.

#lockwood and co #lockwood & co #george karim x you #george karim x reader

[saltygilmores]

Thoughts While Watching Gilmore Girls, Season 3, Episode 8, Part 4: "Let The Games Begin", the part where Lorelai says that if Jess was trapped inside her burning house she would save her shoes first

Lorelai Gilmore, you are no Jack Pearson. I won't complete that thought, even though I'm feeling nice and mean and I totally should.

Scene: Lorelai and Rory are discussing the upcoming road trip to New Haven with the Gilmore Grands. Rory forgot to pack. Lorelai goes into panic mode. Rory questions why she needs to pack her entire closet for a short road trip. Lorelai recounts a family vacation story from her childhood that would be best unpacked in a lengthy therapy session, frets that her mother will lecture them for under-packing, starts rummaging through Rory's dresser. Rory catches Lorelai making a double entendre about a meaty taco and declares it was dirty. The show makes another dig at New Haven after Lorelai brings home a pamphlet about Exciting Things to Do In New Haven but it's only a few pages long.

You sound surprised, as if ya'll aren't wearing heavy coats and long sleeves in the spring and summer. I swear there's something in the drinking water affecting everyone's thyroids in this town, they can't regulate their body temperatures.

Could anyone tell I'm stalling here? Classic Salty.

Rory: Mom, stop rummaging through my shit. Awwwe. Even Evil Villains like Lorelai Gilmore get the blues. I'm surprised she decided to go on this road trip to Yale instead of sending Rory off alone with the Grands, that way she'd have the house and Dean Forrester to herself the entire day. Since Dean's sexual stamina only extends to 1-2 minutes, they could have had sex hundreds of times in a day.

Two quips that sprang to mind (couldn't decided which one was better): The only words Lorelai is thinking about right now are "Dean" and "Shower". Lorelai thinks Jess removed Rory's bracelet while they're in the shower together? Jess could only hope.

Excuse me for a moment... *deep inhale*

I went into the Tumblr gifs library and looked up "peaceful". Here is a nice, presumably not-evil, Peaceful Bunny.

So not only does Jess commit attempted vehicular homicide, and steal Quarters on a String, he steals said QOAS by forcibly ripping them directly off the wrists of poor unsuspsecting delicate young ladies.

Nice try. You think you're so slick, but you're not, Slick Gilly.

You all don't understand the effort it takes for me to break down a scene like this without taking the cowards way out and simply rage quitting (which I have done before). I have to come up with multiple lines of witty, cutting commentary about what is unfolding before me, when all I want to do is KEYBORD SMASH. SO, YOU KNOW WHAT I WILL!! ITS A FREE COUNTRY ISNT IT! BALD EAGLE BASEBALL APPLE PIE! (Deep inhale) sagfshafgahfgasvxzcywtryqwuhajlkansjbkfagsfyafvabsfvsdgr2347527q2y4q#&$T%#^%^#*U@(%)&@tGSHFBSHFSVAGFSFS FUCKYOULORELAIGILMORE#^&#^%&#^WGHFSHGAS@$%@^@

Thank for reminding the audience the reason why Lorelai thinks Jess should, ya know, die painfully and slowly. He was mouthy once. (the Netflix captions borked the line; Rory also said "and wrecked my car", but as if that makes Lorelai's treatment of Future Nephew any more justifable).

I am told that in a later season, Lorelai bemoans the fact that unlike Dean, Jess never offered to change her water bottle for her. NOW WHY WOULD HE DO THAT? YOU'RE ABOUT TO WISH HIM A FIREY DEATH. AND WHEN HE WAS (FORCIBLY) APPOINTED TO CLEAN YOUR GUTTERS YOU DIDN'T WANT HIS HELP..

Lorelai practically moans this, lol. We know "Change the water bottle" can mean two very different things. You ain't so slick, Slick Gilly.

Welcome to Gaslighting and Emotional Manipulation Theater! See, here's the thing Slick Gilly, I watched an entire frigging episode about you accusing Jess of being a thief, it was called Lost and Found and it took me four frigging centuries to finish, I'm quite sure I have concrete evidence that you have accused him of stealing things. I am Jess Mariano's defense attorney and I will see you in court. Bring Rory too, she should also start getting used to what a court room looks like.

Rory, honey. Sweetie. Sugar bear. It's best you don't wish for a crystal ball. Just strap in to the rollercoaster that is dating Jess Mariano while living with your mother, and pray.

See, here's the thing Slick Gilly, I watched an entire frigging episode about you not letting Jess enter your house, it was called Swan Song and it will take me four frigging centuries to rewatch it.

This "Jess talks in grunts" shtick is getting old and moldy.

So not only does Jess commit attempted vehicular homicide, steal Quarters on a String, and steal said QOAS by forcibly ripipng them directly off the wrists of poor unsuspsecting delicate young ladies, but he's also an arsonist, and not only is he an arsonist, he's such a bad one that he'll apparently be killed by his handiwork? (he also can't be trusted to clean gutters). He was probably trying to off himself instead of live in Stars Hollow for another minute. Can we recall another time Rory tried to play this same grim hypothetical with her mom? Does Rory, like Jess, also have some kind of firey death wish? I mean, who can blame either of them. *twinkly flashback music to early season 2*

I notice Pigtails didn't say "my daughter" this time, either. Sorry Rory. Maybe try playing a third time until she answers with "Some form of human life." Lorelai lies to Rory's face that she "promised you before and am promising you again that I will cut "this kid" some slack." Alright, I ran through my 30 screen shots, let's stuff this scene in a sack and throw it into the lake with Shane and her swan family.

Rory: "You're just waiting for the day I break up with Jess." Lorelai The Villain: "Did I like Dean? Yes. Did I worry less when you were with dean? Yes! I never expected you to be with Dean forever. I don't expect you to be with Jess forever." What a pile of rancid baloney. Maybe he won't be with Rory forever, but 13 years later Jess becomes her nephew and will be a part of her family forever and I will never, ever, ever stop loving that. What JUSTICE.

When I hit my lowest of low valleys listening to this wretched woman spew her many lies and Gilly-Nonsense, It's often the only thing that makes me smile.

#jess mariano #literati #gilmore girls #denise rewatches gilmore girls #gilmore girls season 3 #let the games begin #ltgb #now I just have to suffer through the ridiculous shit fit she has at Yale

[spaceagebachelormann]

i just read your gif intimidating and i NEED a second part PLS i loved it <33

intimidating pt 2

pairing: xavier thorpe x reader

warnings: reader bleeding, cuts, mentions of crime and murder, severed ear, gore (sorta)

summary: the groups trip to an abandoned house doesn’t exactly go as planned

intimidating pt 1

masterlist

You were thankful for the few hours you got to spend with Xavier while you all explored the haunted house.

The whole walk to the place, you and him talked. The whole time. While Enid and Wednesday walked ahead, making sure the four of you got to your destination.

“Hey,” Xavier said, glancing down at you, “can I ask you a question?”

You grinned up at him, nodding encouragingly, “Sure! Go ahead!”

“Everybody who goes to Nevermore has something that makes them an outcast. Other than, no offence, by the way, being extremely weird, what makes you different from the normies?”

Your eyebrows raised thoughtfully at his question.

He raised a brow, and look sort of panicked, like he was scared his question had been offensive in some way.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” You said, beginning to smile mindlessly.

“I’m incredibly smart. You said it yourself before I fell out of the tree. And, before you ask, I was only listening because I had gotten myself stuck in the tree. Ironic, isn’t it? One of the smartest students at Nevermore, but I’ve managed to get myself stuck in a tree.”

You laughed at your own ironic foolishness, the sound once again bringing a pink tint to Xaviers cheeks.

“I’m also sorry if this comes off rudely or offensive, but what makes you so smart? And why are you?” He queried, the curiosity showing on his face.

“I grew up in a very dangerous place. Everyone there was either a criminal or someone on the track to becoming one. Everyone was sloppy with their crimes. I could figure out who Jane McCanns murderer was with a few details of the stabbing, and a single look at the murder scene. Honestly, it was scary how unintelligent they all were. Alas, it inspired me. As much as I hate to admit, I knew I was smarter than them all, how narcissistic of me, I know. Anyway, it inspired me to be even smarter. I taught myself everything necessary.” Your face was narrowed, and scowling at the memories of your hometown, before it lit up again, and you turned to Xavier. “What about you?” You asked politely.

Xavier had stepped farther away from you.

“That reminds me of why I was so intimidated by you. Also, that explains why your friends with Wednesday.”

You cackled at that, much harder and louder than ever before. And Xavier felt great pride knowing he was the one who made you laugh like that.

In front of you both, Enid was grinning at the sight and sounds of your well-going conversation.

“Look at them!” She said to Wednesday, nudging her lightly. “They’re perfect for eachother.”

Wednesday shrugged. “I suppose they are.”

Suddenly, she whipped around, startling you and Xavier.

“We’re here. Y/N, go with Xavier, since you seem to be getting along well. You two search the bottom floor, try to find any proof of the hyde living here, and try to find clues for anywhere else it could be hiding. Enid and I will be doing the same on the top floor. Let’s go.”

~

You and Xavier wandered around, cracking jokes and having a lovely conversation as you searched the floor.

“I’ve heard of your father!” You replied to his statement of his parentage, “My mother was quite a big fan of his.”

Xavier rolled his eyes, and grinned wider. “Is she his #1 crazy fangirl?”

“I should very much believe she is.”

As the conversation continued, you saw something begin to faintly glint in the corner of your eye.

Your face grew into a concentrated and confused expression, as you moved around to find a spot where the glint was prominent.

“Y/N? Everything alright?” Xavier asked with concern, glancing around the room for anything that could be upsetting you.

Finally, you moved into a spot where the glint was noticeable. It was coming from under a spot on the old, ratty couch.

You rushed over to it, and pulled away the cushion, revealing a knife, plastered in blood. And right beside it, a severed ear.

“Oh, that’s disgusting. But, Y/N! You’re a genius!” Xavier exclaimed joyously, patting you on the back.

“Wednesday!” You called, “I found something! Come quick!”

But, before Wednesday could come, you saw the expression on Xaviers face turn to panic, and his eyes widen with horror.

Right as you were about to ask what was bothering him, you felt a strong stinging pain in your back.

“Shit!” Xavier bellowed, pulling you into his side.

Through your glassy eyes, you looked up and saw the hyde, towering over you and Xavier.

“We have to go,” You decided, “right now.”

You turned to run, but tripped as the monster took hold of your left leg. You felt it’s teeth sink into your skin, and it’s claws scratch at your flesh.

Xavier grabbed your hands, and attempted to pull you towards him. It didn’t do you much good, because it’s teeth added more deep scratches to your blood-covered leg.

You screamed as Enid and Wednesday entered the room, helping Xavier pull you away from the hyde.

You pulled up your uniform skirt, revealing a knife strapped to your thigh. You pulled it out of the sleeve, and turned towards the monster as it charged towards you.

“Rot in hell!” You screamed, before jabbing the sharp object into its flesh.

It let out a bloodcurdling scream, and Xavier crouched in front of you, signalling for you to climb on his back.

You did so, and you all ran back to your school, praying that the hyde wasn’t following you.

~

Just hours later, you sat in the nurses office, laying on the cot.

“Y/N,” The Nurse called, “there are people here to see you. Are you up for visitors?”

You sighed, sitting up.

“Send them in.”

Xavier, Wednesday, and Enid all came into the room.

“Y/N!” Enid cried, “Are you alright? Your leg was absolutely mangled! I thought they would never be able to heal it!”

You laughed breathily, and said, “I’m okay. How are you three holding up?”

Wednesday sat on the end of your bed, and Xavier went to stand beside it.

“We weren’t the ones who were hurt. How’s your back?” Wednesday asked, folding her hands neatly in her lap.

“It’s much better than my leg, trust me.” You joked, frowning slightly when nobody laughed at your psychotic joke.

Enid suddenly began to grin, “Can we talk about when you stabbed that thing? That was so badass! I wish I had the nerve to do that!”

Wednesday nodded in agreement.

Xavier reached up to brush a few stray hairs out of your face, smiling softly.

“You’re so brave.” He commented, seemingly in a daze, “That was amazing.”

You blushed at the compliment.

Just a week ago you two had been strangers, and now you were closer than ever. Even if you’ve been speaking for just a few hours.

#xavier thorpe x reader #xavier thorpe #wednesday show #mars writing 🧈

[bronx-bomber87]

Happy Tuesday Evening all :) We're off to next ep its more of a mixture of Tim/Lucy and Rachel. Not a ton of gifs or Chenford content. Be a shorter review than normal but it is a good ep none the less though. We'll have a ton of content/gifs in the next couple as you all know i'm sure. So off we go.

2x09 Breaking Point

The episode starts out with Lucy being stopped by a sweet old lady in the lobby. She lets Lucy know how she found this dog in the middle of the road. Lucy tells her that it's an animal control issue. Sweet lady say yes but he was covered in blood. Figured she should let them know about it. Lucy stops Tim lets him know they need to head to a vet. That this dog could’ve come from a crime scene.

They make it to the address on the chip and knock on the door. No answer. Lucy decides to look inside where she then sees a body. Now I shouldn’t get so much joy out of her slightly touching his arm…and yet I adore it. She does this to get his attention that they should enter the house.

Tim kicks the door in (fans self) They start to inspect the house and check the body. Unfortunately this person has already passed. They continue their search and sadly find a child hiding in the bathroom. Poor thing is rocking back and forth in the bathtub.

Lucy tries to get Malcom to talk to her. See if he’ll tell her who killed his mom. He is unresponsive and refusing to talk. Detective Armstrong shows up and lets them know it makes sense. He did a record search, That police and social services have been out to this house half a dozen times in the last year.

That the BF and the mom had domestic calls numerous times. That’s where they find out Rachel was the caseworker for this particular kid. Armstrong advises them to go to Rachel and get all the history they can on this kid and case.

Rachel meets them at the hospital gives them all she knows. That this kid had lots of visits, the BF wasn’t physically abusive, and that the mom was the eye of the storm. She tried to get this kid removed but couldn’t get a judge to sign off for her. Tim lets her know they’re going to need a statement from him. Rachel wants to be present for that. (Must note personal space doesn’t exist for them even in front of the woman he’s currently dating LOL that is all…)

Tim tries to comfort her. Rachel is clearly shaken by the whole thing. Especially since she was so close to this one. He is telling her she did everything she could. Rachel doesn’t feel the same. Here's what I liked about seeing how he is with Rachel. It gave us a little insight to how Tim is in a relationship. He wants to help her feel better because she is visibly shook from this. Which is really sweet. That instinct to protect and make things better for those he cares about. Unfortunately it misses the mark but he definitely recognized the distress and wanted to help her.

The statement begins for Malcom. It’s fascinating to watch everyone’s reaction during this scene. You can see everyone's body language from this shot above. It all unravels when Malcom finally starts speaking. Armstrong is clearly trying to get him to spill his guts, Rachel is protective but catching onto this going sideways quickly, Lucy is also on that train and looking worried about this, Tim looks in cop mode just like Armstrong trying to get the truth.

The more Malcom talks the more something seems off. He’s more angry about his mother and defensive of the BF Carson than anything else. They’re all putting it together quickly when Malcom says Carson left after their fight. That his mom was alive after Carson left….that no one else came over after that. You can see Rachel getting nervous and Lucy getting uncomfortable. Tim is also dreading where this is headed.

Rachel tells Armstrong to stop. Tim says 'Rachel...'. Tries to get her to not interfere in the process. Nick tells Rachel she doesn’t have the standing to make that request. You can see all over Lucy’s face how wrong she finds this. Rachel tells him to ask for a lawyer. Tim and Nick chide her for it. Lucy jumps in and says she’s right. Both men look at her in shock.

Lucy continues that he should have a lawyer for this. You can see Tim and Armstrong aren’t pleased with this suggestion. Nick looks outright livid about it. Then asks if Malcom wants one. He looks at Rachel and says yes. Lucy looks like she is in trouble but not regretting it one bit. She shouldn’t it was the right thing to do.

Tim tells Rachel he’s not mad at her personally. I really don’t think he is. There is a part of him that can relate. A verbally abusive parent pushing you to the edge. Luckily Tim had his sister someone to go through it with him. I’m sure having Genny is probably is part of what saved him from a similar fate with his dad. He had someone to protect. But that’s a future convo to be had in greater detail later on. Wesley shows up and gets involved at this point for Malcom. Making Rachel sit it out. He represents him now not her.

Tim and Lucy watch from observation moving forward. Lucy asks him if he’s mad at her for suggesting the lawyer. I think it's fairly obvious he is from his body language alone. Now I think she’s more upset with the idea he’s mad at her. Not that she feels she did the wrong thing. It distresses her but not enough to change her stance on what she did.

This is definitely growth for her. She’s becoming more confident in herself and the decisions she makes. (Even if she does hate him being upset with her) Just because it’s not way Tim would’ve liked it to go doesn’t necessarily mean it was wrong. I get why Tim didn’t want her to from a logical standpoint. It does give him time to change his story, strategize and possibly get away with murder. Tim is thinking from the victims POV where Lucy is thinking from Malcom’s.

They’re diametrically opposed on this one. He’s madder at Lucy than Rachel about the whole thing. Because at the end of the day right now she’s still his Rookie he her T.O. (Also why it NEVER would’ve worked for them during this period.) Lucy was always going to be her own person and cop. Even if it differs from Tim. It's one of the reasons he falls for her honestly.

Even though they’ve been working together awhile now, he still gets shell shocked when she disagrees with him. Especially when he feels it’s something he wouldn’t ever do. We know how true blue he is to the rules. Especially to what he feels is essential to being a cop. So when Lucy rocks that boat it’s going to upset him. Her testing those waters and disturbing his POV of what it is to be a cop. Her pushing those boundaries with him. Testing his teaching of her and what he think's is essential.

Her challenging him is what causes the back and forth. That tension and release we get. The thing with Chenford is we surge forward with some growth and we also get pushed back a little. That old saying two steps forward one step back. Every time we get a little breakthrough, like the last ep the next we get little push back. Honestly don’t think he expected Lucy to tell the kid to lawyer up. It shocked him. The last episode Tim was slowly allowing Lucy in. Then our step backwards is in this ep his intense reaction to Lucy not following his code on this.

This is the dance they do. Tim softens a bit then pushes away (his reaction to the lawyer situation) before she softens him again. Why the wall takes 4 years to truly crumble for her. It’s realistic and what makes their end game ultimately so satisfying IMO. So this is one of those steps back, in terms of how he’s reacting more severely to Lucy than Rachel.

It’s not a bad thing just a part of that push and pull that is our ship. Tim takes awhile to truly let Lucy in. With his background it's not surprising his reactions are so strong. Especially after letting her in a little more last ep he tends to scold himself for it and backtracks. Oh my poor broken Tim you'll get there.

Sadly Armstrong breaks the kid pretty easily. He breaks and says he killed her after she laughed at him for crying. The verbal abuse finally made him snap. So damn sad....Tim’s scenes end with Rachel. Trying to keep her from beating herself up. This moment further evidence of his growth. He does relate to this kid. He too grew up in a verbally abusive home. His feelings were disregarded and he was put down. Tim lets her know nothing more she could’ve been done.

That tragedies happen no matter how hard we try to stop them. Then comes a very Lucy inspired reply. You can’t tell me this woman hasn’t influenced him. Tim goes on to say ‘Doesn’t mean you give up. But you have to accept the fact, that some things really are out of our control. All we can do is cherish the small victories.’ Tim friggin Bradford said this. Lucy has no idea the impact she’s had on him. Truly. Such a good scene of emotional growth for him. Lovely to see. Tis all she wrote for this one.

~~~

Side notes-non Chenford

Another good ep for Harper. More development for her and her daughter. First sleep over and such. It’s so fun to watch her SL. Truly enjoy it.

Thank you as always to those who like/comment/reblog these reviews. I truly appreciate every single one of them. You have no idea. I shall see you all in the start of our 2 parter for the DOD eps. Those will be exciting to review and write about. They are an iconic set of eps for them and the series really IMO. I will do my best to do them justice <3

#Caitlin rewatches The Rookie #chenford #chenford hiatus #summer rewatch #waiting on s6 #s2 #2x09 Breaking Point #2x09 #the rookie #tim x lucy #tim bradford #lucy chen #lucy x tim #eric winter #melissa o'neil #otp: doing my job #otp: you know me so well. too well. #tim bradford x lucy chen

[portraitoflestatonfire]

2, 10, 15, 18, 29, 35 🧛🏾‍♂️

suddenly every thought I’ve ever had has left me...ok

2. How did you discover it or get interested in it? I was familiar with the books + the '94 film and remember hearing about the Bryan Fuller-led hulu series ages ago (given Fuller's track record it's no surprise that never manifested). But by September 2022 I'd totally forgotten there was a series in the works so all it took was levitating gay sex gifs and Jacob Anderson's face (I've been a Raleigh Ritchie fan for a long time). And the idea of a gothic romance with a black lead was very enticing. I subscribed to amc+ and the rest is history (actually it isn't, should I file a claim in the class action lawsuit against amc?)

10. What was your favorite episode of season one?  1.06! I just found an old post in my drafts basically telling everyone to remember Coline Abert's name. She’s incredible and I'm so glad she's back for s2.

Recovery, reflection, and restitution. This episode contains everything about the series that makes me crazy in top form. We have the aftermath of horrific intimate partner violence and where do we go from here? The difference in how they relate to one another as a result. Codependence abound! The further enmeshment of Louis and Claudia. The "oh-so-delicate balance of our oh-so-delicate household."

We also get the 1973 memory 💕

(and I could write a dissertation on this single still thank you levan)

15. What were your favorite costumes?  Louis' undershirt <3

18. What’s a scene you feel is underrated? hm. It's hard for me to gauge what is/isn't underrated because I spend so much time in this relatively small echo chamber of people who have also combed the entire series top-to-toe a million times.

But I'd have to say the final moment between Louis and Grace in 1.05. The image of Louis crying over his own gravestone is so striking!

Or... Louis and Lestat greeting Florence at the beginning of 1.02. They mention going to see The Doll House afterward. I love the barbs between in-laws ("I see you have a banjo band in your front yard :(" makes me laugh every time). Florence calls Louis "fragile son" as she did Paul in the previous episode. And Louis hearing his mother's thoughts for the first time is super interesting!

35. Share a headcanon of yours. I believe that Louis was an avid reader of bodice rippers and other (un)savory romance novels from the 70s-90s. In fact, there was probably one sitting in his back pocket at Polynesian Mary's. There may not be any on those floating shelves, but it's something I know in my heart! I just feel like the thematic content would resonate with him <3

#thank you so much and I'm sososo sorry for taking so long so publish this! it's been in my drafts for while! #also I have so many favorite costumes especially from Claudia but this was already so long #ask #unidecimber-of-joy #max.txt #long post #boy do i love an exclamation point...