#Shut Up and Let Me Go

[popchoc]

Music asks… 6, 9 and 20 please 😊

6. a song that makes you want to dance

Shut Up and Dance by Walk the Moon (which also comes with one of the best movie compilations, check the vid if you don't know it!!). Can't remember a wedding, party, whatever without me requesting this one!

9. a song that makes you happy

You know that feeling when you walk outside after a really long winter straight into a world that's got all its bright colors back overnight, and it turns out it's warm enough to drop your jacket, and you might accidentally start skipping or whistling and you don't even care? That's the exact same feeling Dreams by The Cranberries gives me - always!

20. a song that has many meanings to you

Wild World by Mr. Big. I know it's a bit corny, but I can tell you it gets quite some meaning when your friends spontaneously start singing it to you during goodbye drinks short before your very first and super-long solo trip across the world. So yeah, twenty years later, it still brings a smile to my face!

[churroach]

Full of Desires

[my-chaos-radio]

Release: July 21, 2008

Lyrics:

Hey!

Shut up and let me go

This hurts, I tell you so

For the last time you will kiss my lips

Now shut up and let me go

Your jeans were once so clean

I bet you changed your wardrobe since we met

Now, oh, so easily you're over me

Gone is love

It's you that ought to be holding me

I'm not containable

This time, love is not sustainable

I ain't freaking, I ain't faking this

I ain't freaking, I ain't faking this

I ain't freaking, I ain't faking this

Shut up and let me go

Hey!

Shut up and let me go

This hurts, what I can't show

For the last time you have me in bits

Now shut up and let me go

For fear of living in regret

I've changed since from when we first met

Now, oh, so easily you're over me

Gone is love

It's me that ought to be moving on

You're not adorable

I want something unignorable

I ain't freaking, I ain't faking this

I ain't freaking, I ain't faking this

I ain't freaking, I ain't faking this

Shut up and let me go

Hey!

Hey!

Oh, love, hold this

Hey!

Songwriter:

Shut up and let me go

This hurts, I told you so

For the last time you will kiss my lips

Now shut up and let me go

Hey!

Jules De Martino / Mark White (spin Doctors)

SongFacts:

👉📖

[seymourmusicclub]

The Ting Tings - Shut Up and Let Me Go

[pommedepersephone]

I have lived this exact moment. When you realize you can't win this one, that they've already gone someplace you won't, you can't, follow. And it takes everything to walk away and they call you back. The agony. You are forcing my hand, just let me leave.

And yes, you snap.

After rewatching the Final Fifteen over and over again, I don't think Crowley wanted to kiss Aziraphale.

Look. I know we’ve all read a lot of different readings of ✨the kiss✨ and why it happened the way it did. It’s just that none of the posts I’ve seen so far captured exactly the feeling I was reading into the scene, so I thought I might as well share my interpretation. Because I don’t think Crowley wanted to kiss Aziraphale, actually. I mean of course he wanted to, but– let me explain.

I brought gifs and a little more heartbreak :)

First of all, I do agree with most of the interpretations going around. Crowley wanting to change Aziraphale's mind? Totally plausible. Wanting to show him what he’s losing? Probably. Taking the last chance he might get to finally kiss him? Yes, please!

What I mean when I say I don’t believe Crowley wanted to kiss Aziraphale are essentially two things, one of them being that Crowley didn’t plan on kissing him. He planned on leaving.

We know this because it’s exactly what he does.

The moment I come back to over and over again is when Crowley puts on his sunglasses and heads for the door.

Look how close they are to each other. Usually, you would expect the kiss to happen in a moment like this. All it would take Crowley is to lean forward. If he wanted to kiss Aziraphale and change his mind, he would do it right there. But he doesn’t. He nods in a way that screams: Right. This is a losing game.

Aziraphale had just told him that nothing lasted forever (so why should he stay) and he already put back his wall of defense (the sunglasses). Of course, we can't tell for sure but everything in his appearance tells us that for him, the moment between them is gone. The only chance he had decided to take had slipped through his fingers. It is time to leave. So he does.

Crowley does not stop until Aziraphale cries out his name and wants him to come back. He is not held back by his own desire but by his incapability to resist Aziraphale’s cry for help. Not that these things can’t be connected – but look at his body language, look how reluctant it seems, annoyed almost.

It looks like he really doesn't want to stay. At the same time, he doesn’t want to hurt Aziraphale. He wants him to know that he cares. It’s not easy for him either. So he stays. Listens to what Aziraphale has to say.

But it hurts even more. Crowley doesn't even bear to look at him. Aziraphale just doesn’t understand him, doesn’t understand the way Heaven works, even after all these years. At least, that’s what Crowley thinks. Everything that made the air around them vibrate, every nightingale that ever sang, is now dead silent. Crowley says so himself.

This is not him pathing the way for a kiss. This is him saying goodbye.

And then he says: “You idiot. We could have been –“

Maybe he doesn’t quite know what exactly he wants to say or maybe he does but he doesn’t know how.

“– us.”

His voice is trembling. He lets the words linger in the room between them. Note how he is already speaking in the past tense. We could have been. But we’re not.

However, Crowley admits that the possibility of them being an Us was there, hence the possibility of everything that being an Us means to him. It drips from his toungue, every moment and every feeling he connects to the sense of being an Us. You have to remember the feeling to voice it, even when you do it to say goodbye.

And I think – we’re getting to the essence of this post – I think what happens is that Crowley gets overwhelmed by his own words, or rather: by grabbing his feelings and putting them into words, by the implication of them as an Us and everything he imagined it would have been for them. And what it means to lose it.

And I don’t think he consciously decides to kiss Aziraphale. I don’t think he wanted to kiss him in the sense that he didn’t want to take this step and actually do it. He had already lost.

(We could have been us but we’re not.)

They are still too far away from each other.

(We’re not. But we could have been.)

Eventually, Aziraphale averts his gaze, and turns his head to the side.

And this! This is the moment Crowley steps forward! Let me emphasize it once again because I do believe it’s crucial to Crowley's change of heart.

Aziraphale looks away. And Crowley snaps.

He snaps like a rubber band you pull at for too long, like the clip of a ballpoint pen cap you push too hard upside. It’s not a conscious decision. It’s a reflex. Like closing an app on your phone and opening it again directly after. Like someone calling your name and you turn your head in the direction of the voice. You don’t think about it. It just happens.

And I think Aziraphale looking away was the last straw that held the rubber band in place. The last thing that kept Crowley from falling once again. I genuinely don’t believe he would have kissed Aziraphale if the latter had continued to look at him. Too scary, right? Too real. Too close.

So this is the second thing I mean when I say that Crowley didn’t want to kiss Aziraphale. Of course, he wanted to but he didn’t make a deliberate decision. He just … gave in.

And when he pulls away, he knows that everything between them has changed. He waits for Aziraphale’s reaction, everything about him is tense.

And if he dared to hope for anything at all, it surely wasn’t this.

Forgiveness.

"I forgive you."

I forgive you for giving in.

Don't bother.

So Crowley does what he wanted to do in the first place – and leaves.

He didn’t plan on kissing Aziraphale. He wanted to leave, maybe even to prevent this from happening. And when it happened, I don’t think it’s because of ulterior motives like changing Aziraphale’s mind or grabbing the opportunity as it presented itself to him.

I’m not saying these motives aren’t there – in fact, I pretty much believe so! I'm just saying that maybe he didn’t think about them when kissing Aziraphale and that he didn’t decide to kiss him because of that.

Maybe this is more than obvious to everyone else already and I'm stupidly rambling to myself. Also, I'm truly sorry if I overlooked another analysis of this.

I just don’t think there was time in Crowley’s head to reflect on any of his feelings.

I think he was just not holding back anymore.

[house-of-slayterr]

I cannot describe in words how much this song feels like being trapped in a JC Penny’s commercial…

[fluffyartbl0g]

A man of many of the most INTENSE facial expressions,,,,

Happy birthday Monkey D. Luffy!!!!

[hauntingofhouses]

Very interesting to me that a certain subset of the BES fandom's favourite iterations of Mizu and Akemi are seemingly rooted in the facades they have projected towards the world, and are not accurate representations of their true selves.

And I see this is especially the case with Mizu, where fanon likes to paint her as this dominant, hyper-masculine, smirking Cool GuyTM who's going to give you her strap. And this idea of Mizu is often based on the image of her wearing her glasses, and optionally, with her cloak and big, wide-brimmed kasa.

And what's interesting about this, to me, is that fanon is seemingly falling for her deliberate disguise. Because the glasses (with the optional combination of cloak and hat) represent Mizu's suppression of her true self. She is playing a role.

Take this scene of Mizu in the brothel in Episode 4 for example. Here, not only is Mizu wearing her glasses to symbolise the mask she is wearing, but she is purposely acting like some suave and cocky gentleman, intimidating, calm, in control. Her voice is even deeper than usual, like what we hear in her first scene while facing off with Hachiman the Flesh-Trader in Episode 1.

This act that Mizu puts on is an embodiment of masculine showboating, which is highly effective against weak and insecure men like Hachi, but also against women like those who tried to seduce her at the Shindo House.

And that brings me to how Mizu's mask is actually a direct parallel to Akemi's mask in this very same scene.

Here, Akemi is also putting up an act, playing up her naivety and demure girlishness, using her high-pitched lilted voice, complimenting Mizu and trying to make small talk, all so she can seduce and lure Mizu in to drink the drugged cup of sake.

So what I find so interesting and funny about this scene, characters within it, and the subsequent fandom interpretations of both, is that everyone seems to literally be falling for the mask that Mizu and Akemi are putting up to conceal their identities, guard themselves from the world, and get what they want.

It's also a little frustrating because the fanon seems to twist what actually makes Mizu and Akemi's dynamic so interesting by flattening it completely. Because both here and throughout the story, Mizu and Akemi's entire relationship and treatment of each other is solely built off of masks, assumptions, and misconceptions.

Akemi believes Mizu is a selfish, cocky male samurai who destroyed her ex-fiance's career and life, and who abandoned her to let her get dragged away by her father's guards and forcibly married off to a man she didn't know. on the other hand, Mizu believes Akemi is bratty, naive princess who constantly needs saving and who can't make her own decisions.

These misconceptions are even evident in the framing of their first impressions of each other, both of which unfold in these slow-motion POV shots.

Mizu's first impression of Akemi is that of a beautiful, untouchable princess in a cage. Swirling string music in the background.

Akemi's first impression of Mizu is of a mysterious, stoic "demon" samurai who stole her fiance's scarf. Tense music and the sound of ocean waves in the background.

And then, going back to that scene of them together in Episode 4, both Mizu and Akemi continue to fool each other and hold these assumptions of each other, and they both feed into it, as both are purposely acting within the suppressive roles society binds them to in order to achieve their goals within the means they are allowed (Akemi playing the part of a subservient woman; Mizu playing the part of a dominant man).

But then, for once in both their lives, neither of their usual tactics work.

Akemi is trying to use flattery and seduction on Mizu, but Mizu sees right through it, knowing that Akemi is just trying to manipulate and harm her. Rather than give in to Akemi's tactics, Mizu plays with Akemi's emotions by alluding to Taigen's death, before pinning her down, and then when she starts crying, Mizu just rolls her eyes and tells her to shut up.

On the opposite end, when Mizu tries to use brute force and intimidation, Akemi also sees right through it, not falling for it, and instead says this:

"Under your mask, you're not the killer you pretend to be."

Nonetheless, despite the fact that they see a little bit through each other's masks, they both still hold their presumptions of each other until the very end of the season, with Akemi seeing Mizu as an obnoxious samurai swooping in to save the day, and Mizu seeing Akemi as a damsel in distress.

And what I find a bit irksome is that the fandom also resorts to flattening them to these tropes as well.

Because Mizu is not some cool, smooth-talking samurai with a big dick sword as Akemi (and the fandom) might believe. All of that is the facade she puts up and nothing more. In reality, Mizu is an angry, confused and lonely child, and a masterful artist, who is struggling against her own self-hatred. Master Eiji, her father figure who knows her best, knows this.

And Akemi, on the other hand, is not some girly, sweet, vain and spoiled princess as Mizu might believe. Instead she has never cared for frivolous things like fashion, love or looks, instead favouring poetry and strategy games instead, and has always only cared about her own independence. Seki, her father figure who knows her best, knows this.

But neither is she some authoritative dominatrix, though this is part of her new persona that she is trying to project to get what she wants. Because while Akemi is willful, outspoken, intelligent and authoritative, she can still be naive! She is still often unsure and needs to have her hand held through things, as she is still learning and growing into her full potential. Her new parental/guardian figure, Madame Kaji, knows this as well.

So with all that being said, now that we know that Mizu and Akemi are essentially wearing masks and putting up fronts throughout the show, what would a representation of Mizu's and Akemi's true selves actually look like? Easy. It's in their hair.

This shot on the left is the only time we see Mizu with her hair completely down. In this scene, she's being berated by Mama, and her guard is completely down, she has no weapon, and is no longer wearing any mask, as this is after she showed Mikio "all of herself" and tried to take off the mask of a subservient housewife. Thus, here, she is sad, vulnerable, and feeling small (emphasised further by the framing of the scene). This is a perfect encapsulation of what Mizu is on the inside, underneath all the layers of revenge-obsession and the walls she's put around herself.

In contrast, the only time we Akemi with her hair fully down, she is completely alone in the bath, and this scene takes place after being scorned by her father and left weeping at his feet. But despite all that, Akemi is headstrong, determined, taking the reigns of her life as she makes the choice to run away, but even that choice is reflective of her youthful naivety. She even gets scolded by Seki shortly after this in the next scene, because though she wants to be independent, she still hasn't completely learned to be. Not yet. Regardless, her decisiveness and moment of self-empowerment is emphasised by the framing of the scene, where her face takes up the majority of the shot, and she stares seriously into the middle distance.

To conclude, I wish popular fanon would stop mischaracterising these two, and flattening them into tropes and stereotypes (ie. masculine badass swordsman Mizu and feminine alluring queen but also girly swooning damsel Akemi), all of which just seems... reductive. It also irks me when Akemi is merely upheld as a love interest and romantic device for Mizu and nothing more, when she is literally Mizu's narrative foil (takes far more narrative precedence over romantic interest) and the deuteragonist of this show. She is her own person. That is literally the theme of her entire character and arc.

[a2zillustration]

Oops all codependency

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[casualavocados]

…It's nice. You're so noisy. […] Actually, it'd be better if we died together. That way, neither of us would have to suffer the pain of losing the other, right? Shut up.

KISEKI: DEAR TO ME Ep. 13

[willowser]

not to be so disgusting and gross about gojo on the dash but i think he's such a flirty, teasing idiot that, when you show him genuine and true affection, he goes all somber and quiet.

like you come up to him after dinner and stand on your tip-toes and hug him for no reason, give him a fat kiss on the cheek for no reason, and he just — lets you. doesn't say anything, just kind of hums and lightly places his hands on your hips, so gently you might not even know they're there. you tell him, "i love you, thank you for eating with me," and he presses his mouth to the top of your head, lips squished, and says it back, but there's no jokes, no teasing remarks. he just allows himself to be weak and to bask in it, for as long as he can.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

world's most annoying man is not allowed outside due to his inability to shut up

[the-cashtealer]

"Addicted? I'm not addicted. I'm only playing! They just don't get it."

[sirazaroff]

Comms are down 🐰🧰

[poisonousquinzel]

"harley quinn's never had a good design in the last deca-!" WRONG dropkicks you through a brick wall

[ineffectualbookseller]

The way Azirphale is underestimated and practically infantalized by heaven is so closely tied to his femininity and I think we should talk about it more because I just want to shout about how relatable the way he's treated in his workplace is as a woman working in a traditionally male field

It's in all the little niggling comments from your boss about personal things that hold no bearing on your work

and the assumption that what you're doing must be simple if it was assigned to you

your work is trivialized

and you get these the placating smiles when you're told plans and proposals are rejected and passed over

or when your complaints are dismissed

and you get more of the same from upper management

it all feels so frustrating and draining but you're at work so all you can do is take a breathe put on that mask and move on with your day

It is all so deteimental to your emotional well being and textually, so much of this is tied to Aziraphale's softness, his gayness - his femininity

The thing about working in an environment and gives you this feeling - of being simultaneously destrought watching your belief in yourself get chipped away but also just so irate becuase you know you don't deserve it - is how it builds. It sinks under your skin and feeds into this indignant dejection until you can have a moment of release - but Azirphale doesn't get to bitch about it over drinks with friends, he doesn't get a lunch break where he can go for a walk and listen to an angry scandi death metal playlist, he doesn't even get the chance to cry about it in the bathroom for 5 minutes before confronting it again

(And I talked a little bit about it in the tags of this beautiful photoset but this all comes into play whenever Crowley dismisses his plans or calls him an idiot. These are purely emotional reactions; I really don't think Crowley means much by it - he respects Aziraphale's opinion and genuinely thinks he's brilliant - but Crowley is so quick to use this terminology when Aziraphale is making a decision Crowley thinks is wrong and he doesn't know how much this hurts Aziraphale. Just like Aziraphale doesn't understand the true impact the Fall had on Crowley, Crowley doesn't understand the ways heaven has been tearing away at Aziraphale's self worth)

Aziraphale has been facing this constant drip of denigration since before the beginning of time and has never released the pressure valve. At this point, he's a bomb waiting to go off