The more I think about the last minutes the more I’m sure Crowley was saying goodbye from the minute Aziraphale told him he’d said yes to Heaven. He doesn’t confess his love like he’s hopeful, he confesses it like a eulogy. He doesn’t kiss him to make a beginning, he kisses him to seal the end. He watches him go like it’s the last time.
Crowley knows Heaven. He knows they’ll want to either make Aziraphale just like them, or destroy him. Either way I think he believes he’s seen his angel for the last time.
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Alastor, Vox, and Smiles
Sooo I noticed in Episode 2 when we're introduced to Vox's character for the first time he spends a considerable amount of time forcibly putting on a smile when around other people.
For the cameras
Then for Velvette
And then when trying to calm Valentino down
Now that we have confirmation that Vox and Alastor used to be friends* because of the torn photo, Alastor's speech to Charlie about smiling to put up a facade for various reasons just highlights the similarities between Alastor and Vox. Almost like they have the same philosophy and tactics when it comes to manipulating those around them, huh?
(*I say "friends" because you don't just have pictures taken with mere "acquaintances", tear the so-called acquaintance out of the picture when mad, and then keep the torn photo for years and years. Vox didn't even throw away the torn part, the whole point of tearing someone out of a picture is to get rid of them and he straight up kept Alastor's torn half of the picture lol. And I don't think they were ever business partners because Alastor said "no" to "joining Vox's team". Plus, I highly doubt Vox would be as vehemently pissed off at Alastor if they were just acquaintances... So I feel like they were at the very least friends. Maybe even more than friends...)
Alastor is undoubtedly better than Vox at maintaining the facade, but still... I just think it's interesting that they share such a similar philosophy for interacting with others. Add to it that Alastor clearly knows how to press Vox's buttons (heh) so well that he can send him into a blackout and it's just more and more evident that they used to be close at one point. Close enough for Alastor to teach Vox some of his tricks for manipulation or Vox to pick up the same habits.
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tgcf book spoilers, but one mu qing and xie lian snippet that I think about a lot is this one, at the start of xie lian’s second banishment when he’s surprised to hear mu qing being described as generous and kind:
as opposed to this memory from before his first ascension when mu qing started giving out cherries to the kids in the city:
I think it just really goes to show 1) how deeply mq’s actions truly affected xl and what he thought of him, but also 2) just how different mq and xl are fundamentally in the way that they think and approach things.
I don’t have a lot of commentary on xl that hasn’t already been said, but bc we get the story from xl’s pov, we see a lot of mq’s actions being framed as selfish or suspicious (which is fair, bc again, we know how much his actions hurt xl), but we also see a lot of misconstrued kindness, like in book 8 where it’s revealed that he knocked out fx in order to save him. it’s also pretty obvious how much mq still cares abt xl, with how quickly he volunteers as fu yao and the lengths he goes to protect him when he deems hc a threat, so I also think it’s very likely that mq leaving the trio first was exactly what he said it was — that he thought becoming a junior official, ascending quickly, would be the best way to take care of not just his mother, but also xl, fx, the king and queen, and himself, and so in a way, him leaving was him acting on his kindness. but ofc it doesn’t work out, and he spends the next 800 years fighting w/ fx about it, defending himself, his decisions, and his kindness, and nitpicking the accuracies of his statues while he himself remains completely misunderstood by the two people he probably cares abt the most.
and idk, I guess I just think that’s probably a really lonely way to spend 800 years.
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can we talk about Phil and Jaiden today and their interactions after Jaiden finally shows her wings because I’m going crazy.
Jaiden showing off her wings for the first time to Phil, and Phil both happy for her and also insanely jealous, because why did she get to keep her wings, while his got clipped so badly he needs his backpack to counterbalance the weight he lost - or at least the weight he looses having to keep them close to his back.
and the whole time they’re talking in a group, hanging around spawn, Jaiden is perched somewhere above the group. up in a tree, moving from branch to branch, or against the wall, or right on the top of that lamppost. Phil, on the other hand, stays sat on the bench the entire time. grounded.
and every time Jaiden hops from perch to perch, he looks specifically at her. zooms in whiles she’s sat on the lamppost even as he continues conversation. its such a small detail but really helps punch in just how much Philza can’t let it go, can’t stop wishing that he could do the same.
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i will never be normal abt cicero this is a promise. 8 years in a basement waiting for a voice that never comes. 8 years alone with nothing but cobwebs and a corpse you have to tend both on religious and practical levels. a duty solemn and sworn to people who are now dead - your only family - and a god whose existence is older than that of the gods most often worshiped. survivor of two sanctuaries destroyed or otherwise nonfunctional. a newcomer hears the voice you've been straining to hear for almost a decade. the self-doubt and the grief and the "why was i not chosen? was i not enough?" and the anger at the night mother smothered by the religious guilt at the anger. being angry and devoted at the same time and fiercely loyal and loving the very entity who passed over you for someone who knows nothing of your brotherhoods ways because they came into it in a sanctuary where all rite ritual and rules were tossed aside. they dont even know the tenets and yet they were chosen but you were loyal all these years and yet, yet, yet, yet. man.
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"The world's coral reefs are close to 25 percent larger than we thought. By using satellite images, machine learning and on-ground knowledge from a global network of people living and working on coral reefs, we found an extra 64,000 square kilometers (24,700 square miles) of coral reefs – an area the size of Ireland.
That brings the total size of the planet's shallow reefs (meaning 0-20 meters deep) to 348,000 square kilometers – the size of Germany. This figure represents whole coral reef ecosystems, ranging from sandy-bottomed lagoons with a little coral, to coral rubble flats, to living walls of coral.
Within this 348,000 km² of coral is 80,000 km² where there's a hard bottom – rocks rather than sand. These areas are likely to be home to significant amounts of coral – the places snorkelers and scuba divers most like to visit.
You might wonder why we're finding this out now. Didn't we already know where the world's reefs are?
Previously, we've had to pull data from many different sources, which made it harder to pin down the extent of coral reefs with certainty. But now we have high resolution satellite data covering the entire world – and are able to see reefs as deep as 30 meters down.
Pictured: Geomorphic mapping (left) compared to new reef extent (red shading, right image) in the northern Great Barrier Reef.
[AKA: All the stuff in red on that map is coral reef we did not realize existed!! Coral reefs cover so much more territory than we thought! And that's just one example. (From northern Queensland)]
We coupled this with direct observations and records of coral reefs from over 400 individuals and organizations in countries with coral reefs from all regions, such as the Maldives, Cuba, and Australia.
To produce the maps, we used machine learning techniques to chew through 100 trillion pixels from the Sentinel-2 and Planet Dove CubeSat satellites to make accurate predictions about where coral is – and is not. The team worked with almost 500 researchers and collaborators to make the maps.
The result: the world's first comprehensive map of coral reefs extent, and their composition, produced through the Allen Coral Atlas. [You can see the interactive maps yourself at the link!]
The maps are already proving their worth. Reef management agencies around the world are using them to plan and assess conservation work and threats to reefs."
-via ScienceDirect, February 15, 2024
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i love you testosterone i love you voice cracks i love you bass notes i love you loud laugh i love you fuzzy mustache i love you whispy patchy beard i love you bushy eyebrows i love you hairy stomach i love you knuckle and hand hair i love you boy smell i love you bottom growth i love you new orgasms i love you big nose i love you square jaw i love you squishy stomach i love you thighs that touch i love you stretch marks i love you acne i love you acne scars i love you body heat i love you appetite i love you mood stability i love you balanced hormone cycle i love you puberty awkwardness i love you uncertainty i love you adjustment i love you transformation i love you change i love you maturation i love you growth i love you freedom i love you euphoria i love you comfort i love you familiarity i love you recognition i love you second chances i love you masculinization i love you embodied manhood i love you testosterone
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