#✧ ･ ° ･↣ ❛ do unto others as you would have them do unto you ❜(hilda)

[agwitow]

"From the mid nineteenth century to the mid twentieth century" might be a little vague for some people, so let me be specific.

The last residential school in Canada closed in 1996.

This is not an act that happened long ago. It's not something that only happened to your grandparents and great-grandparents. There are people in their 30s who attended that school.

And there are still institutions, regulations, and policies that have carried over from that period to affect the way non-Christian people are treated. A lot of it has to do with the fact that almost all of our policy makers have been some form of Christian since day 1. But that's not the fault of the church or it's policies over the last several hundred years /s

Love seeing something from TikTok and going “girlie that is literally what led to the downfall of the Papal States”

[randomfoggytiger]

"At Least Until the Weather Breaks"

A very Merry Christmas to you, @cecilysass: hope this piece grants you a fraction of the joy your work has endlessly given me~.

*-*-*-*-*

Post Agua Mala reflections.

*-*-*-*-*

“Agent Scully, where are you?” 

Perhaps Skinner would be surprised. He had been, mere days ago, when she and Mulder showed up outside of Kersh’s office, unity shed like snake skin. He'd been doubly surprised, she knew, when Mulder guided her out later, hand once again possessively at her back. She wasn't going to explain to Skinner then-- as she walked away, a hair from her partner’s shoulder-- why she relented. Why she had deflected Kersh in Mulder’s defense-- “Sir, I wouldn’t bet against him”, with snarling control-- and left both outsiders to stew and wonder in her wake. 

And she wouldn’t now. The stretch in her partnership was no longer taut, but the vibration still rang. Spender’s son was dead, but both X-Files inmates still imagined a rivulet of his blood drip, dripping under Mulder’s reclaimed desk. Arguments were shelved, weapons set aside, and peace wordlessly reestablished before they’d left Kersh’s office. Ease was repairing itself in the mindless act of feeling each other’s presence as they packed and toted and unpacked mementos of their past in unison. They trusted, once again, to the process of symbiosis, turning from fiery conspiracy to watery mystery as unto salvation.  

“In Florida, Sir.” 

“In Florida? Wasn’t there a record hurricane down there?” An expected pause. “Is Mulder down there with you?”

“Yes, Sir.”

Another pause. A long sigh: Skinner unable to discern them. “As soon as the skies clear, I need you and Agent Mulder on a plane and back in D.C. We have a meeting scheduled to discuss both your transfers.” 

A mere formality, everyone knew, for the Board’s pride. “I’ll let him know, Sir.” 

Scully ended the call, and was about to walk away from the burning Floridian sun when her cellphone rang. 

Leroy Walter Villarreal Suarez Jr. 

No kidding.

*-*-*-*-*

It was surprising, she owned: Mulder with flat bangs, Mulder with pater glasses. Mulder smoking. 

“Ah, everyone did it then,” Dales waved, warm and chiding. Never a thought in his soggy, besotted brain that she, too, had a naughty vice once. “What surprised me most was the ring. Everyone smoked, everyone had cheap haircuts-- everyone wore rings even. But I’d never met a guy who wore one for fun. Have you, Agent Scully?”

“Mm,” she replied, lips curling around a plastic cup Dales must have bought in bulk. Her partner with a ring. Her partner, gunshy of a normal life, aping a veneer of normalcy. Because that’s what he’d been doing, she was positive:  one look at his face now-- eyes darting, shoulders scrunching, lips pouting in mock distraction-- let her know that that act, whatever it had been, had been for himself. 

Diana Fowley, Scully winced, had watched him mime this normalcy and still left to climb the ladder. She’d smoothed his flat bangs and wiped away the lipstick on his trusting cheek and left to destroy the sameness of other women’s lives. 

Yet, here it is again, this large and fathomless thing between us: the root of Skinner’s puzzlement, the unconscious understanding and trust-- she shoved reliance quickly away-- that flowed too forgivingly between them. An unfathomable thing that clouded over when their ideals and faults clashed: her partner underestimating her abilities, she underestimating his loyalties. 

How could I forget, Scully had wondered as Mulder droned from her voicemail, “Hey, Scully, just got a call from Arthur Dales-- he says there’s a sea monster that’s just blown into Florida. If we catch the last flight tonight, we might be able to touch down before the state’s under water.” How could she forget that he’d always fought her on her instincts? On her own deathbed, when the cancer was destroying her from the inside out, he’d been right about Skinner; he’d been right about many, many more things than Skinner. But he’d been wrong about Diana; and she’d been wrong about wedging the Gunmen in her confrontation. They’d both been wrong, and right, and simultaneously right and wrong before; but not on the day the world almost ended. And, though there were still eight boxes to be unpacked, important reports to be typed up, churlish review boards to prepare for, Dana Scully had lifted her phone from its jack and called him back. “Mulder, a hurricane?”-- Mulder, I’m in. “Scully, a sea monster”-- Scully, like old times, old roads: we find the sea monster, we find each other. 

“Well… that’s where you’re wrong, Mr. Dales,” Mulder argued, fidgeting on the couch, trying to find a comfortable spot on this mummified-turned-humidified, Floridian-ified cloth bag. 

“Oh? You know another guy?” 

“My mother.” 

“Oh.” That must have made sense. “She raised hoity toity?”

“I was.” 

The crash of realization was so quick and so visceral that it struck her clammy skin like lightning: the son of broken, reclusive Mrs. Mulder, reconstructing his memories and muddying them with her excuses. His mother keenly avoiding the past; Mulder bending over backwards to appease and soothe before snapping upright and demanding the truth. Mulder wearing an older man’s glasses and taking up an older generation's quest and smoking his father’s cigarettes-- leaving off the nasty habit before Scully’s time, substituting with his father’s charm against nightmares. Her partner, clinging to the past while trying to find where he belonged.

These thoughts should depress; but they didn’t-- couldn’t, after she’d clung to Mulder’s hand in the torrent, tracked a sea monster by his side, and brought a new life into this large and complicated, small and simple world. Not after he’d given up quibbling over her victories. 

“’Hoity toity’?” she repeated instead, waiting expectantly for him to turn around and smile over the absurdity of their reality. 

*-*-*-*-*

“So, we drivin’ home?” 

They were situating in their storm-damaged rental, Dales’s head and arm swaying heartily from their rearview mirrors whenever he deemed appropriate. He’d asked if they'd wanted to keep a plastic cup each-- a noblesse oblige memento of the trailer park, Scully assumed. They’d both declined.

Mulder was not in the passenger seat, despite the wounds peppering his neck: dressing pulled up to his jaw, he’d chosen to obstinately pretend nothing was amiss. Not wanting to come down from the high of their experience, it was in his best interest-- the profound clench of his teeth telegraphed-- to ignore present uncomfortable reality.  

“If the wind kicks up, we could borrow an umbrella and fly back to the office.” She suppressed a smile at her partner’s chuckle, a delight still freshly cloaked in relief. 

“We’d have investigated her if she existed. You know that, Scully.” 

She did-- could imagine a chilly trip to England, Mulder reveling in the charm of ancient, storied folktale and superstition. Mutually exploring a turf that was no longer his. Oxford rising from the poetic fog, his college memories beating her childhood glimpses. He was so American she often forgot that he, too, traveled across the ocean. 

“I read the books when I was a child.” 

“Books?”

“Mm hm. A series,” she admitted, eager to share something from her past. Perhaps from heatstroke, perhaps to bolster the burgeoning camaraderie. 

Though why this memory she didn’t know: the tail end of one summer spent cooped up inside, Charlie coughing up a lung in the other room as her temperature stayed stubbornly high. Melissa, sick of calling her a big baby, convincing Bill to leave his friends to grab Dana a book from the library “so she’ll stop whining”. Her oldest brother spending the next two weeks biking back and forth as the book bug slowly infected the convalescents. Their fights, their frustration; their relief on returning to school.  

“I read the series religiously one year. Memorized whole passages by heart and recited them every opportunity I could.” Scully watched his head bob vaguely while he checked the gas and turned to reverse. “I was trying to prove a point, I suppose: my family loved the movie, and. And I wanted to… stand out.” Dana, you’re such a square. Dana, you’re such a pill. Dana, why won't you just admit you like it? 

“Stand out?” His eyes were curious, darting her way whenever the road could spare them. 

“Mm.” Was elaboration necessary, between them? She didn’t think so. Not for another while, anyway. “But when I went off to college, things changed. Everything was so new and so different…. It was isolating, in a way. It drove me back to the past.” 

Silence permeated as clumps of wrecked and ruined trees swept by. She needed to start calling local motels to see if there were rooms open. She needed to call her mom. She needed to turn off her phone and sleep until life no longer fuzzed at the edges. 

“What did you do?” Mulder prodded, wistfully. 

“Well….” Scully sighed, retracing the weave of her thoughts. “I bummed a ride to the local video store and rented it, over and over, when things got too lonely. That’s how I made it the first two years.” 

He said nothing, just slowly nodded as they changed lanes. 

*-*-*-*-*

There was nothing but time, now, to reflect-- something she'd purposefully avoided since that sordid night in the Gunmen's lair. Everything then was too muddled, too raw and dangerously close, to think about, let alone understand. But the lull of conversation, the empty silence between phone calls, the endless stretch of waterlogged, abandoned roads yawned and stretched and plucked an abandoned thought from her unconscious without notice.

She’d led the way to Kersh's door, stayed a half step always in front of her partner, pursed her lips at Skinner’s greeting, hedged determinedly away from Mulder’s closeness. A contrast to their ally ship the previous night: her eyes peering ahead, searching the dark for signs of life; his eyes glued to the crushed car she’d driven across the train tracks-- a striking contrast (she shotgun, he side-saddle) to their rote partnership. Smoke and ashes and the corpses of deceiving families looming over their heads like a conscience. Skinner hadn’t expected the battle to extend to their relationship; and she’d walked expeditiously away from his questioning eyes, guiding them both to Kersh's desk with brittle dignity. 

Neither had spoken to each other while A.D. Kersh spit and A.D. Kersh swore and Jeffrey Spender resigned and left them the X-Files. Perched in a getaway corner of the room, Skinner had missed their wordless exchange, the psychic transference they were capable of since that first fateful day in Mulder’s office: his softened stutter, a sorrowful admission of guilt; her twitching eyebrow and slackened mouth, an acknowledgement of his admission. Fault confessed, the breadth of temptation and cowardice became irrelevant in the weight of charred bodies and grave missteps.

It was easier, and harder, to shove it behind them. Eyes followed their backs out and into the hall, down the elevator, and down, down, down into another layer of chaos and death: the body of Jeffrey Spender, expendable in the face of yet another father's disappointment.

At least Bill Mulder had begged, "Forgive me," when he robbed his son of the ultimate truth.

*-*-*-*-*

“Are you still in Florida, Agent Scully?” 

That, or a broiling, humid Twilight Zone. 

They’d been advised off the road by another no-nonsense uniform; and, escape impossible, had panhandled around for a room at the inn. The ones available were of middling quality (save a truly deplorable toilet that was decorated, Pollock-style, with human fluids), but it was better than Mulder’s suggestion to pull off and catch some shuteye in a parking lot. That was too local for her tastes. 

“Yes, Sir-- for another eight hours or so. Agent Mulder has hope that the planes will be up and running by then.” 

“So soon?”

“It is Florida, Sir.” 

Her partner was seated on his single bed, half-listening while madly typing up notes. He looked up, once, before losing interest, deciding instead to abuse the backspace key with a vengeance. 

There was a parallel, she believed, that could be drawn from a neck-deep metaphor and his tender tentacle wounds. As if in sync with her thoughts, he fingered one absently; and winced. 

“Keep in touch, Agent.” 

“Yes, Sir.” Disconnecting the line, Scully debated whether to grab breakfast from a vending machine or sink, exhausted, onto her bed and never get up. The room’s smell-- a clash of coastal mist and dead algae, death and stymied life-- decided her: another second here and she’d have to think about mold. “I’m going to grab some food.” 

Mulder looked up, fingers stilled, hungry hope brewing in his eyes. “Change’s in my wallet.” How they even had wallets after the last twenty-four hours, Scully couldn’t venture a guess. Then again, their odds had been remarkably high lately. 

About time.

“I’m buying.” She was halfway out the door, shoes scrubbing against old, fuzzy carpet fibers, before his voice stopped her. 

“Scully. Thanks.” 

It was such a small gesture-- one that shouldn’t have moved her as much as it did. But Scully’s eyes stung, and her hands trembled as they tightened on the door knob. Tucking her head, she swallowed back a shaky breath; and, turning, swept her eyes around the room, once, for composure. “We slew the monster, Mulder.” 

He slowly smiled; slowly blinked; slowly seemed to take her in from head to toe. Slowly nodded. 

Giving a tight smile in return, Scully added, “I’ll be back,” before closing the door gently behind her. 

*-*-*-*-*

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

Tagging @today-in-fic, @poangpals.

[sarafangirlart]

This particular line in Euripides’s Andromeda (fragments) really stuck with me.

Basically he’s saying “I don’t do bad things bc I don’t want bad things to happen to me.” Which… on the surface seems kinda selfish, after all you shouldn’t do bad things bc it’s the right thing to do not bc you are worried karma would bite you. Then I thought about it more and realized, a somewhat shallow belief such as this isn’t even present in most Greek heroes (especially Achilles bc good lord he must look like a super villain to the Trojans) and their lives all end in tragedy partially bc of their bad deeds, so it’s funny to imagine that Perseus isn’t the most noble Greek hero (who happens to also live a long and happy life and never cheated on his wife) bc he has a good heart, but bc he has a brain in his skull.

[crickacoal]

Literally this!! Because the themes of bsd are so present in classic literature (not only because they have to be due to the... yknow... classic lit author characters) and the structure of it really encourages the audience to look deeper at tiny details to form an accurate narrative.

You want an unreliable narrator? Take a look at how Dazai sees himself vs how Atsushi sees him. Yes Atsushi has reasons to put Dazai on a pedestal but he doesn't look past his flaws, he just accepts them and moves on rather than making them the be all and end all that other characters (and Dazai himself) do.

You want that conflict of morality? The whole plot. You want it to get more complex? Take a look at Fyodor, someone doing absolutely heinous acts for what he sees as world peace. Take a look at Atsushi, terrified of being anything but good and avoiding what he sees as "immoral" actions purely for the selfish reason of saving his own soul.

The aching lonliness present in so much post-war Japanese literature as a direct result of the westernization of Japan is so blatant and so well-done. Dazai is in a world unto himself most of the time, and he's only barely pulled out of it by the characters around him. Look at Oda, a self-described sea creature travelling through a world he doesn't belong in but loves anyway. Ango, made to be a traitor and entirely hating the role, forced into isolation because it's what's safer for those around him. And Akutagawa, so hell-bent on a goal that others won't understand that he isolates himself before others can reject him into isolation.

To me, understanding our relationships with others is the crux of literature. Conflicting moralities, what we keep to ourselves, how people are shaped by the decisions of those who came before them and those who send them on their different paths. Setting bsd after the war was absolute genius because it creates this shared experience which so shapes the culture of Yokohama and shapes its characters without making it clear to the characters in question that this is what has impacted them so deeply, because, well, everyone went through the war. It's not until we get to Fukichi and Yosano where it's made so explicit we can't ignore it anymore. The war is the catalyst for unrest and the elephant in the room until we see its claws come out of the dirt and realize what's been rumbling under the characters' feet this whole time.

I'm not going to get into the interdependence of every character on the other in bsd, nor am I going to get into cycles of abuse and the power of human connection because they're so overdone in analysis it would be useless.

But this is what literature has been getting at for so long. It's looking into the eyes of someone who has been long dead, someone a million miles away who has made a million different decisions than you would ever think of, and being able to say "so this is how it is for you. This is how you've come to understand the world"

I would say that bsd gets so many people into classic literature but to be fair I think it attracts the type of people who would get into it anyway and just needed an excuse.

[dramoor]

"It is a fearful thing to hate whom God has loved. To look upon another—his weaknesses, his sins, his faults, his defects—is to look upon one who is suffering. He is suffering from negative passions, from the same sinful human corruption from which you yourself suffer. This is very important: do not look upon him with the judgmental eyes of comparison, noting the sins you assume you’d never commit. Rather, see him as a fellow sufferer, a fellow human being who is in need of the very healing of which you are in need. Help him, love him, pray for him, do unto him as you would have him do unto you."

~St. Tikhon of Zadonsk

(Image via orthochristian.com)

[seasonalsadnesss-blog]

just saw the clip of billie eilish being hit in the face - hard - with a bracelet during “what was I made for,” after which she threw it to the side and continued singing. ALL of the comments were defending the fan, saying how upsetting it must have been to not only hit billie in the face but to then have her throw it to the side and be clearly upset about it - they think that the fan’s guilty conscience should be enough punishment and that billie overreacted. Huh??

Not only is this yet another chapter in the story of how social etiquette has become decrepit, possibly as a result of quarantine, but the fact that it was during a song where the artist is expressing the dehumanisation of reaching celebrity status is almost too on the nose for me to adequately describe my frustration. Don’t throw anything at anyone who hasn’t explicitly asked you to! Ever! Please have the awareness to not just see the world as something that shapes around you, but something that you are a part of, that you participate in alongside others. Be kind ffs.

[christiandomme]

I just had a neighbor ask me for help figuring out how to vote early. And my guess is that they’ll be voting differently than me in the national election and there was this little treacherous thought of ‘do you really want to help the other person have another ballot in their favor’?

But then I grit my teeth and reminded myself that I am committed to our representative democracy and that if someone else was being a roadblock to helping their neighbors figure out how to vote for a candidate I supported, I wouldn’t think that was some grand moral choice.

So I sent my neighbor the link and explained their two early voting options in our state and tried to talk up my preferred local candidates that they hadn’t made a voting decision about yet.

[tomoleary]

Norman Rockwell - “The Golden Rule” Post cover 4/1/61.

[pilmyeol]

MADE FUN OF MY SIBLING AND THEY MADE A FACE AND I COULD TELL FROM THEIR FACE THAT THEY WANTED TO PUSH ME DOWN THE STAIRS AND AS I WAS OPENING MOUTH TO TELL THEM I LIKED THEIR IM GONNA PUSH YOU THE STAIRS FACE THEY SAID SHUT UP ILL PUSH THE STAIRS

[factual-flittermouse]

I definitely believe that this is, to some degree, true. After all, parenting styles are based off of what did and didn’t work for us as kids, teaching styles are based off of all the teachers that students loved, actors and artists often mimic the works of those they admired and the teachers who were most effective and understandable.

I met a chef who refused to yell in the kitchen because he had several teachers like that and hated it. My mom’s entire parenting style is basically just the opposite of her dad’s. My teaching style and the way I interact with kids or younger sibling is based on doing what I wished my parents or instructors would have done for me.

At some point, you realize that no one will save you. You have to save yourself. That doesn’t mean you weren’t worthy of saving. It just means that you can make the world a little better by being there for other in situations where you were left alone.

It's like that saying about "hard times make strong men, strong men make good times, good times make weak men, and weak men make hard times" but with a generational trauma spin. What was difficult for you made you your own hero. You can now be someone else's hero. Hopefully, they won't then become someone else's monster and will instead continue your example, but it's true that they won't understand things as you did - a good thing, though it can be a bit sad for you…

— roach-works

[choatic-bumblebee-agenda]

Lemonade crunchy ice Ann have grace Ann be nice

[kolkaslove]

Animal abuse is genuinely so fucking insane what is wrong with people jesus Christ

[unproduciblesmackdown]

one thing i can intermittently remember re: lackadaisy is that way back when, would've been around '08 to '10, i mentioned it to someone in person w/whomst like informal Media Recs Trading was established & i think mentioned wanting recs for checking out webcomics specifically? & i was like ooh lackadaisy Gotta be lackadaisy (i read like, a few others at the time but was immediately huge on that one specifically due to [the ways it pwned were obvious to me first reading it in '07 and Now alike]) and like. in the realm of Left Field Responses I Got After Ventures Of Someone W/o The Confidence I Have Now Thanks To Grinding For It In The Entire Interim i eventually followed up like did you check it out, what do you think, b/c my enthusiasm was stronger than my reluctance to bring shit up unprompted. and i think they were sort of evasive a moment but then were like nah b/c.......why are they cats....like lmfaoooo was Not ready for that like yeah idk what to tell you if that was that significant a factor. except that if you know that much it's too late the furry police are en route

not long afterwards perhaps truly more unexpected. i managed to finagle going to the first convention marble hornets was at, relatively short notice, and this is thanks to by that point having Enthusiasm behind it again, of course. afterwards to the relatively small tumblr mh ether i Ventured Forth again like is there interest in my talking about it, livestream q&a possibilities style even? and then i got an anon telling me not now b/c hοmestuck had updated. omicron just to not risk it plus i think even now i'd filter my own post. like divide this into four sections the way i'm truly at a loss. didn't have that much to talk about but looking back like fr you're neurononconforming in online fanbase Posting same as in the [random discord servers Hate them! non normative verbal communication happens in scores / hundreds of words if it happens at all] like and yet it gets to you to the con. and to the "i don't need other people to like media 'with' me i didn't talk about lackadaisy at all till the pilot dropping & my [first full reread in a Minute] got me all fired up posting style & 'hey wait. my special little guy. all this fresh Mystery Plot Everything appreciation. whoa'" moment. plus nowadays it's only like Lol Lmao whereas back then it was like :( :/ but also still funny b/c this person was running away throwing chairs & tables behind them like i'm not a furry i'm not and an anon was like didn't ask don't care oppa homestuck style. standing there palms open like. furious theorizing is there for me

[foldingfittedsheets]

One of the most memorable speeches I've ever heard was given at my beloved's graduation. They attended a pretty crunchy school natural medicine. They went for acupuncture but they also had many degrees including nutrition, naturopathic medicine, and most importantly to this story: midwifery.

The common consensus across campus was that the midwives operated on their own frequency which is a nice way to say they were usually really weird, even by the standards of a pretty alternative crowd of people. Not weird in a bad way. But weird nonetheless. They straddled the boundary between life and death and it changed them.

I had never experienced a midwife before the ceremony which is why I didn't think anything of the fact that a midwife stepped up to give the graduation speech. My friends nearby had a stir of repressed amusement and elbowing each other which did puzzle me slightly.

The speech began as a story, which I heartily approved of. The midwife related an experience in which a woman told her that during her first birth she had screamed too much and used up her energy in that instead of pushing and the midwife, to the collective masses assembled to watch a solemn ceremony, said, "I told her this time she would need to scream with her vagina."

The audience was slightly stunned by this, myself included. I scanned the crowd to see dropped jaws and wide eyes. It was such a bold statement to make in an academic setting and no one quite knew what to make of it.

The midwife continued unperturbed.

She related that many dads didn't know what to do during the birthing process and that this particular dad chose to chant over and over, "You're gonna be huge, you're gonna be huge," as his wife screamed with her vagina to birth their child. The midwife mused that she didn't know if he was talking to their child or his wife or if he even registered what he was saying in that moment.

Then the subject strayed toward how the student body had strained and striven toward this goal, this endgame that was the result of sleepless nights, hard work, and camaraderie. The speech seemed to have moved onto more solid ground and traditional graduation reminiscences. The crowd settled, thinking the worst had passed.

But as the midwife wrapped up she said, "As you go forth into the world, pushed out by this noble institution to help the masses, just remember one thing," she paused and the audience held their breath while the beat drew out before she finally whispered:

"You're gonna be huge."

There was a roar of astonished laughter as her speech neatly tied their graduation into a metaphor for being birthed unto the world and we finally understood the point of her anecdote.

The speech lives in infamy in all our collective memories. Years later my beloved's dad will still be like, "Remember that bizarre graduation speech?"

And it was. It was bizarre. But I'll say this. I've attended a lot of graduations, and I don't remember any of the speeches half so well as I do that one.

[joycrispy]

Awhile ago @ouidamforeman made this post:

This shot through my brain like a chain of firecrackers, so, without derailing the original post, I have some THOUGHTS to add about why this concept is not only hilarious (because it is), but also...

It. It kind of fucks. Severely.

And in a delightfully Pratchett-y way, I'd dare to suggest.

I'll explain:

As inferred above, both Crowley AND Aziraphale have canonical Biblical counterparts. Not by name, no, but by function.

Crowley, of course, is the serpent of Eden.

(note on the serpent of Eden: In Genesis 3:1-15, at least, the serpent is not identified as anything other than a serpent, albeit one that can talk. Later, it will be variously interpreted as a traitorous agent of Hell, as a demon, as a guise of Satan himself, etc. In Good Omens --as a slinky ginger who walks funny)

Lesser known, at least so far as I can tell, is the flaming sword. It, too, appears in Genesis 3, in the very last line:

"So he drove out the man; and placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." --Genesis 3:24, KJV

Thanks to translation ambiguity, there is some debate concerning the nature of the flaming sword --is it a divine weapon given unto one of the Cherubim (if so, why only one)? Or is it an independent entity, which takes the form of a sword (as other angelic beings take the form of wheels and such)? For our purposes, I don't think the distinction matters. The guard at the gate of Eden, whether an angel wielding the sword or an angel who IS the sword, is Aziraphale.

(note on the flaming sword: in some traditions --Eastern Orthodox, for example-- it is held that upon Christ's death and resurrection, the flaming sword gave up it's post and vanished from Eden for good. By these sensibilities, the removal of the sword signifies the redemption and salvation of man.

...Put a pin in that. We're coming back to it.)

So, we have our pair. The Serpent and the Sword, introduced at the beginning and the end (ha) of the very same chapter of Genesis.

But here's the important bit, the bit that's not immediately obvious, the bit that nonetheless encapsulates one of the central themes, if not THE central theme, of Good Omens:

The Sword was never intended to guard Eden while Adam and Eve were still in it.

Do you understand?

The Sword's function was never to protect them. It doesn't even appear until after they've already fallen. No... it was to usher Adam and Eve from the garden, and then keep them out. It was a threat. It was a punishment.

The flaming sword was given to be used against them.

So. Again. We have our pair. The Serpent and the Sword: the inception and the consequence of original sin, personified. They are the one-two punch that launches mankind from paradise, after Hell lures it to destruction and Heaven condemns it for being destroyed. Which is to say that despite being, supposedly, hereditary enemies on two different sides of a celestial cold war, they are actually unified by one purpose, one pivotal role to play in the Divine Plan: completely fucking humanity over.

That's how it's supposed to go. It is written.

...But, in Good Omens, they're not just the Serpent and the Sword.

They're Crowley and Aziraphale.

(author begins to go insane from emotion under the cut)

In Good Omens, humanity is handed it's salvation (pin!) scarcely half an hour after losing it. Instead of looming over God's empty garden, the sword protects a very sad, very scared and very pregnant girl. And no, not because a blameless martyr suffered and died for the privilege, either.

It was just that she'd had such a bad day. And there were vicious animals out there. And Aziraphale worried she would be cold.

...I need to impress upon you how much this is NOT just a matter of being careless with company property. With this one act of kindness, Aziraphale is undermining the whole entire POINT of the expulsion from Eden. God Herself confronts him about it, and he lies. To God.

And the Serpent--

(Crowley, that is, who wonders what's so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil anyway; who thinks that maybe he did a GOOD thing when he tempted Eve with the apple; who objects that God is over-reacting to a first offense; who knows what it is to fall but not what it is to be comforted after the fact...)

--just goes ahead and falls in love with him about it.

As for Crowley --I barely need to explain him, right? People have been making the 'didn't the serpent actually do us a solid?' argument for centuries. But if I'm going to quote one of them, it may as well be the one Neil Gaiman wrote ficlet about:

"If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization." --Robert G. Ingersoll

The first to ask questions.

Even beyond flattering literary interpretation, we know that Crowley is, so often, discreetly running damage control on the machinations of Heaven and Hell. When he can get away with it. Occasionally, when he can't (1827).

And Aziraphale loves him for it, too. Loves him back.

And so this romance plays out over millennia, where they fall in love with each other but also the world, because of each other and because of the world. But it begins in Eden. Where, instead of acting as the first Earthly example of Divine/Diabolical collusion and callousness--

(other examples --the flood; the bet with Satan; the back channels; the exchange of Holy Water and Hellfire; and on and on...)

--they refuse. Without even necessarily knowing they're doing it, they just refuse. Refuse to trivialize human life, and refuse to hate each other.

To write a story about the Serpent and the Sword falling in love is to write a story about transgression.

Not just in the sense that they are a demon and an angel, and it's ~forbidden. That's part of it, yeah, but the greater part of it is that they are THIS demon and angel, in particular. From The Real Bible's Book of Genesis, in the chapter where man falls.

It's the sort of thing you write and laugh. And then you look at it. And you think. And then you frown, and you sit up a little straighter. And you think.

And then you keep writing.

And what emerges hits you like a goddamn truck.

(...A lot of Pratchett reads that way. I believe Gaiman when he says Pratchett would have been happy with the romance, by the way. I really really do).

It's a story about transgression, about love as transgression. They break the rules by loving each other, by loving creation, and by rejecting the hatred and hypocrisy that would have triangulated them as a unified blow against humanity, before humanity had even really got started. And yeah, hell, it's a queer romance too, just to really drive the point home (oh, that!!! THAT!!!)

...I could spend a long time wildly gesturing at this and never be satisfied. Instead of watching me do that (I'll spare you), please look at this gif:

I love this shot so much.

Look at Eve and Crowley moving, at the same time in the same direction, towards their respective wielders of the flaming sword. Adam reaches out and takes her hand; Aziraphale reaches out and covers him with a wing.

You know what a shot like that establishes? Likeness. Commonality. Kinship.

"Our side" was never just Crowley and Aziraphale. Crowley says as much at the end of season 1 ("--all of us against all of them."). From the beginning, "our side" was Crowley, Aziraphale, and every single human being. Lately that's around 8 billion, but once upon a time it was just two other people. Another couple. The primeval mother and father.

But Adam and Eve die, eventually. Humanity grows without them. It's Crowley and Aziraphale who remain, and who protect it. Who...oversee it's upbringing.

Godfathers. Sort of.

[lingeriae]

"because you're my wife."

the voice is aggressive and harsh, which isn't unexpected because of the person it comes from, but the words have you feeling warm even with the possessiveness and aggression that comes off of it, it still has you face heating up and your eyes averting from his ruby red ones that seem to see right through you.

sukuna's fist is clenched and his body is tense as he stands in front of you, unknown and unwanted emotions flowing throughout his body, his heart beating rapidly and loudly in his ears—he wonders if he's having a heart attack at the moment. his swallows as he takes in your beautiful side-profile, light hitting your sun kissed skin just right, his fingers itch with the need to grip unto you. to take you.

his throat feels tight.

your stubborn, reckless—smart but reckless. it gets on his nerves, the way you don't seem to care about anything, not even yourself. your defiant, especially against him. don't follow rules, and go by what you think is right, and no one, not even him, can get in the way of what you think is right. and it's funny, you're just a mere human, a bothersome woman. sukuna could take your life easily, he has no doubt you would put up a fight, but he could kill you.

that was the plan all along, marry a member of the zenin clan, get the information needed, then kill them.

but things had changed, a lot of things changed since he met you. you made sukuna...feel things. you were different from all the members of that shitty clan, with your hair that rose towards the sun, always looking neat with the little curly coils and always feeling soft to the touch, you didn't cease to amaze sukuna with the little way you styled it and with the way you cared it so delicately.

your fierce glare that rarely left sukuna's gaze, never backing down even when he gave you the most deadliest of looks that had anyone else cowering, those same eyes that allow him to see how vunerable you are when you let him have his way with you and show him how you truly felt at times. those plumpy soft lips, full and round, they felt like heaven against his own when they overlapped. your sweet fucking voice, always finding something to cuss him out about, always saying his name in more ways than once. shit don't let him start on your fucking body.

you made sukuna feel things, give him this warm and nice feeling inside and it makes him sick. everything would go according to plan if you didn't make sukuna fall for you—if you weren’t so you. that's why he can't kill you,

and that's why he's so fucking upset.

with your arms crossed over your chest, you unintentionally make the male infront of you glance down at your supple breast that sits temptingly against your bra, you suck your teeth in annoyance still refusing to look at him. "i was your wife before, and it wasn't a problem." before, before he fell for you. before he got infactuated with you.

his jaw tightens and he grabs your chin, forcing you to stare into his eyes. "i said what i said, you'e not doing that shit. you're gonna get fucking killed."

you drag your hand from his grip as if you were burned, returning his equally intense gaze and ignoring the way your panties seem to cling unto you. drenched with annoyingly arousal. "don't talk to me like im a fucking child, ryomen."

sukuna’s head tilted in brief wonder and amusement, astonished that you would spit his last name out with such venom, knowing he could kill you in a second. knowing that not only was it his name but yours.

he lets out a bitter chuckle, "stop fucking acting like it."

it's a silent battle between you and him after that. both of you silently daring the other to look away as you continued to glare at each other—a silent battle between husband and wife. a war between two faith-fucked lovers.

sukuna huffs out a breath, shaking his head wildly before cradling your delicate and god-like face in his palm—akin to some form of desperation.

“what is it going to take? to prevent you from doing this to-to stop you from going on this fucking suicide mission?!” his voice almost cracks.

sukuna ryomen’s voice almost cracks.

your hand is so little in contrast to his. it has committed less cruelty and faced less harsh treatment compared to his, yet you place your hands over his and caress them with such gentleness. such tenderness and love.

and sukuna’s heart cracks at the words that left your lips, inhaling sharply as if he had been stabbed in the chest.

“there’s nothing you can do, you can’t stop me from doing this. nothing you do or say will change my mind and that’s final.”

the king of curses forgets how to breathe.