#angel season 3

[kiwi-jien]

Headcanon in which Stolas moonlights as I.M.P.'s party healer, cause "... the fuck is insurance?!"

(also a small nod to ANGEL - the series, because season 3 was wholesome and we don't talk about what came after.)

Part 2:

https://www.tumblr.com/kiwi-jien/753824665204621312/part-2-of-the-stolas-as-the-party-healer?source=share

[lady-blodreina]

The Angel Investigations Group gossiping about Angel's love life

Aka Cordelia and Wesley role playing

Angel Season 3 episode 5: Fredless

[halyasgirl]

Spent my workday thinking about an AU of Angel season 3 where Spike and Drusilla are somehow present for Connor's birth and the Whirlwind is reunited under really, really strange circumstances.

Realistically, there's a chance that Spike would want to grab Dru and get the hell out of dodge as soon as he realized how weird the situation is. Angel and Darla are having a tearful soul-baring heart-to-heart and Spike's ready to burn rubber getting out of L.A.

Even without the Nyazian prophecies Dru would sense something is up and insist on being there to welcome the new member of their "family." In a race against time any seer is welcome, but Dru's nearly as hard to understand as the Scrolls, and no one's first choice for a birth attendant.

She probably foresees Darla's death and becomes very attached/clingy toward her, which unsettles both Angel and Darla.

Darla and Angel are still the leaders of the Whirlwind, but suffice to say the dynamic is very different now that they have souls. Darla's breakdown would be especially shocking to Spike, who's only ever known her to be pragmatic, cunning, and self-serving, and unlike Angel he hasn't witnessed the effects of ensouling up close. Depending on what direction his character development has gone in he may choose to protect his "family," at least given the choice between them and vampire cultists, Wolfram & Hart, and a vengeful vampire hunter.

Holtz may or may not have any idea who Spike and Drusilla are, and they may or may not faze him.

Angel's worried about Holtz, worried about Wolfram & Hart, and now worried about his unpredictable, soulless progeny arriving for his son's birth. He needs all the help he can get but neither he nor the rest of Angel Investigations trust Spike or Dru as far as they can throw them.

Darla's wracked with soul-induced remorse and attempts to apologize to Drusilla (and to some extent Spike) several times for her fate, but it's never quite clear if Dru understands. By the end though, Drusilla's told Darla enough of her own fate for Darla to understand how she will make amends.

The jury's still out if Spike and Dru are there for the birth/death itself and if they stick around after, and what would happen if they do.

[travllingbunny]

Angel sparing Holtz after Holtz stole Connor proves he's the better man between them. Agree or disagree?

Should I assume that you've read the Dark Horse (sadly) canon comics, specifically the Angel and Faith series, and that this is what inspired you to ask this?

That series was a perfect example exactly how you should not treat your morally grey protagonist, and of what people sometimes refer to as the "Protagonist Privilege". The TV show never, or almost never, made me feel this way, but Christos Gage wrote a series that was not about really exploring the issues of Angel's guilt and struggle for redemption - it was all about the narrative downplaying Angel's horrible acts (especially the newest and particularly damning ones he had just committed in the Buffy comics that preceded it) and having all the good guy characters (especially Faith) straight up tell him over and over - and through him the audience - that Angel is a great guy who deserves to be forgiven, because he feels bad and wants to do good. No ambiguity, no tension over the issue - will be prove himself worthy of redemption? Will the people he hurt (including Buffy) be able to forgive him? No, the series made sure you understood there was never any uncertainty about their protagonist being a good guy, and it consistently portrayed people who had a grudge against him (for things like him having killed their friends and loved ones) as misled and in need of changing their outlook on life.

One of the things that really has stuck in my mind, and one of the low points of the season in my opinion, was a speech by Faith, (IIRC) where she was reassuring Angel that he was a better person than Holtz, because Holtz couldn't let go of his obsession with revenge against Angel.

And that made me incredibly angry. You don't get to murder someone's entire family, traumatize them horrifically, and then be considered a "better" person than them when they don't want to forgive you and when they want revenge. You just don't.

So Angel didn't take revenge against Holtz that Holtz did as revenge for what Angel had done to him? So what? Holtz stealing Connor does not make them even. Don't get me wrong, I consider Holtz a tragic villain, and he considered himself evil by the end, when he was asking Justine to kill him so he could execute his revenge to the end. But Angel is responsible for Holtz becoming the way he became.

And the reason Angel spared Holtz is because Angel was aware of this, and felt guilty for what he had done to Holtz, and for turning him into what he had become. It's not like Angel is generally an incredibly forgiving kind of person. What did he do after Connor was stolen? He tried to strangle Wesley in his hospital bed - and not even impulsively. He was refusing to forgive Wesley (even while knowing Wesley did not intend for Connor to be hurt and was acting out of a misguided concern for the child), and Wesley had to save him from years if not decades or centuries of hellish existence for forgiveness to even be possible. And I loved this and loved Angel for it, for being portrayed as a real, human (!) person, with believable human emotions, not some flawless heroic angel that the comics wanted to tell me he was.

I could also mention the fact that Angel, after getting cursed with having his soul back, wasn't doing any good for almost a century. He tried to get back to Darla but wasn't evil enough for her taste, was mostly roaming around aimlessly, and showed himself to definitely not be the forgiving kind when he left all the people who had lynched him to be devoured by the demon in the hotel. It was only in some 90 years after his re-soulment, after Whistler approached him and told him he had a mission and showed him Buffy, that he started to actively try to redeem himself.

Holtz went through a horrific trauma of finding his family murdered, probably tortured before that (Angel made hints about having raped his wife) and his young daughter turned into a monster - which, as far as he knew and/or believed, as a religious man and a vampire killer, meant he had to kill her, and also made it questionable if she could go to heaven. No surprise he became even more obsessed with finding and killing the perpetrators. We don't know how long he was on Angel's and Darla's trail, but this couldn't have been too long - months to maybe a couple of years? And then he was transported to the present by a demon who offered him a chance of revenge. From his POV, it had not been centuries, it all happened over a relatively short period. Would you be satisfied and said "oh well, I don't need revenge anymore" if someone told you "he's good now"? We also don't see Holtz surrounded by a bunch of people trying to dissuade him from revenge and giving him a taste of normal life and friendship. The people he gathered in LA were those as desperate and traumatized as himself, and none of them seemed to question him. Now, yes, he did get 16 years with Connor, and you could imagine a heartfelt story where raising Connor and being his surrogate dad could heal Holtz and made him decide this was more important than revenge.... but these 16 years were spent in a hell dimension, just him and a child in hell . Not something that seems likely to help anyone's mental health.

In short: even if I accepted the premise of judging "is the perpetrator a better person than their victim if they didn't take revenge after the person they hurt took revenge on them?"!," I don't think we could even compare Angel and Holtz as they were not in the same circumstances.

[rock-and-compass]

Ugh. When the Groosalugg shows up at the end of Waiting in the Wings.

[oveliagirlhaditright]

Do the Math

Summary: It's an equation that needs to be solved: what to do to protect his son from Holtz. So maybe it's a good thing that Buffy seems so good at math now...

Or "Angel asks the Scoobies to come help him protect Connor from Holtz. And Angel realizes that while everything Buffy and Connor seems figured out, maybe some things between him and the Slayer still need to be equated."

Oneshot. Fluff. Romance. Bangel. Slight Angel and Connor (mentioned). And slight Buffy and Connor (mentioned). Buffy season 6/Angel season 3 AU.

Author's Note: So, I’m sure the timeline is messed up here: like I’m sure the Buffy S6 and Angel S3 timelines aren’t adding up at all, tbh, but shh. This fic is pretty soon after Xander left Anya at the altar. And right after that happens (no Seeing Red stuff or anything past that occurs), Angel calls Buffy and the Scoobies to come help him and the Fang Gang in L.A., in thinking that maybe Holtz is too much a threat to Connor, after all, and he could use their help. And they all do head to L.A. (minus Giles, obviously. And Spike, who thinks that he’s finally losing Buffy here, and wouldn’t be able to stand seeing her and Angel together. And also Anya, since Xander just left her). And Willow and Tara do get back together, and manage to work things out, though it’s no easy journey: that’s kind of the background for this fic.

Do the Math

"When did you realize that you love math, Buffy?" Angel asked the love of his life, while she sat doing Sudoku for sun in the Hyperion's lobby.

She was sitting in one of the circular, green seats that Angel had never entirely been able to figure out… because in some ways they seemed to not fit in with the Hyperion’s décor.

…And yet he’d always loved them with his whole heart, as they’d brought to mind of things like greenhouses—that he could never touch at the time of day he wished he could, but dreamed that he someday would be able to.

Angel had asked Buffy and her friends to come to the Hyperion when he could no longer deny to himself the threat that Holtz could be to his son. He knew that the Slayer would be able to help protect Connor as well as he could. So selfishly, he’d made a call to Sunnydale, asking Buffy if she was available.

When Angel had explained his reasoning, even though Angel knew the story of Connor’s conception had hurt Buffy, she had left without a second thought.

But it was only as he had been talking to her here since Buffy’s arrival, that he was learning he couldn’t have asked her to come at a worse time: he’d been able to see the tension in her shoulders the moment she had walked in.

According to Buffy, Xander had left his fiancée at the altar, Giles had left her, Dawn was a klepto-maniac, and Willow was addicted to magic—and had even gone so far as to do a memory spell on her girlfriend—that she’d only just forgiven her from.

And Buffy herself… she still seemed to be carrying everyone’s burdens as if they were her own, like she’d always done, but she still seemed as shaken as she had the night he’d first seen her when she came back (how Angel cursed himself for that awkward night and walking away). And he knew there was something about Spike… whenever he mentioned him, Buffy got a far-away look in her eyes and looked shamed and dead in the same breath.

But maybe he could make her feel better by bringing up this new thing that seemed to be bringing joy to her now, Angel thought. And so he carefully watched her face.

Buffy smiled, as she laid her work down for the moment, and gave Angel her one-word answer: "Factoring."

"Factoring?"

"What can I say? It's fun. And it finally clicked for me, when Willow sat down and tried to teach me it again after she and Tara broke up. I guess the other stuff is okay, too, like Order of Operations. And clearly, I like Sudoku… But mainly? It was Factoring."

Factoring. Huh. That was definitely interesting.

And when Buffy had mentioned how Willow had had to explain it to her again, it made the vampire remember how much Buffy had struggled with arithmetic in the past and just how much she’d hated it. More than once, she’d complained to him about it—wishing that Willow would realize that their study sessions were in vain, and that she “was never going to need this stuff in the real world,” and that she’d rather be shopping for shoes or, better yet, making out with him.

But this stuff was needed—something Buffy had eventually figured out and appreciated it. And she wasn’t the only one who was going to need it, Angel realized. Someone very special to him was. But how to even begin teaching him it?

"Buffy… I shouldn't be asking this," Angel started, but knowing that he was going to, anyway, because he loved Connor and would always want the best for him. He also adored the idea of Buffy being around Connor more than he wanted to admit. "But when Connor gets older, do you think you could tutor him? I know he's going to need to know Factoring, Algebra, and what have you for school… and it's all lost on me."

For just a second, Angel thought he saw a flash of pain in Buffy's eyes, but it was gone before he could really be sure he'd seen anything at all.

"I mean… that's going to be years from now, Angel," the Slayer voiced, decidedly not looking at him, he noticed, as she continued to look at her workbook. "What are you saying? That you want me to drop back in from Sunnydale once Connor's school-aged?

"Because despite everything… I do plan on going back. If not for my sacred duty—because I’m kind of done with Sunnydale: Faith can handle it—then to check on Anya. I mean, I may not have always shown it, but she is my friend, and-"

Buffy was clearly babbling now… and though she hadn't voiced it, Angel knew what the question she wasn't asking was: what she deemed to be too dangerous here, even though he had offered something similar to her when they'd met after her resurrection. 'Or are you asking me to stay?' is what she really wanted to voice.

He moved towards her with vampire speed, from where he had been mostly watching her from the other side of the room, and silenced her with a finger to her lips and a shake of his head. "No, Buffy, I- Fuck, I really thought I was better at this… What I'm saying is, I'd want you to stay."

Buffy stared at Angel for a long moment after he'd spoken, and Angel wished he could stake himself for it. He wanted to believe that the Slayer was, perhaps, hard of hearing, but he knew that the opposite was true.

At once, he was taken back to when he had broken up with Buffy. She had said that she wanted her life to be with his, and he had said he didn't—meaning he didn't want her to ruin her life on account of him, even if selfishly he wanted her more than anything. But Buffy had taken it as him meaning he didn't want to be with her, and he hadn't corrected her, in thinking that that might finally be the thing to get her to finally stop fighting for them and to try to walk into the sunlight.

…But things had not gone as planned. And more than once, Angel had had to furiously ask himself just how much he'd hurt her, in assuming he knew what she needed.

"Buffy-" he started.

But Buffy was finally answering him. "Oh. I didn't realize that when you asked for our help--namely my help—in protecting Connor from Holtz… you were asking to get back together."

'I actually wasn't,' Angel thought. 'Because I did this the wrong way. And if I had been trying to get you back then—and I am now—I would have gone about it all way better… how you deserve to be treated. Especially after how I've hurt you before,' Angel thought but didn't say. Buffy may have been a wiz at math now, but he knew that this equation would just confuse her, and she might stake him for how poorly he'd planned things. And honestly, he would have deserved it.

Instead, he went with saying an equally terrifying, "And how do you feel about that, Buffy?"

"Like you're still Mr. Cryptic," Buffy answered, punching his arm in irritation. "And confused. I-I want to be with you, Angel.

"God, I should not be admitting that to you, after everything,” she muttered, upon standing up and pacing with her hands in her pockets, once again looking anywhere but at him. “Because I'm not exactly the schoolgirl you once knew.

“But at the same time,” and here, Buffy did find the strength to stop and look Angel in the eyes as she swallowed. But it seemed to him she also half-expected him to burn her at the stake after her words, “…you saw how I reacted to you when you showed up to apologize about Faith, and at my mother's funeral… and even when I got brought back, though I was a wreck then. My feelings for you, despite everything, haven't changed…

"But some other things have. And I just don't know if this is the best time right now, Angel. I left The Trio in Sunnydale to come help you, and we don’t have Faith out of jail yet to deal with it. I'll be there for you and Connor right now. I'll even be willing to teach him for you, but I-"

And that was fair. More than fair, Angel thought as he nodded his head. And Angel wanted Buffy to know that, so he moved forward and gave her a hug. And while he knew he loved her again—he always had, and he'd been stupid to think he ever couldn't or could forget that—he tried to keep his feelings out of it, and let it be the first ever just friendly hug between them.

Buffy seemed to appreciate it, as she disappeared into his embrace for a long moment, before breaking away.

"That's fine, Buffy," Angel promised her, once she was looking at him again. "That's more than fine. Thank you. It's selfish of me to think that now that I want to be in your life again, you'd automatically be ready for that. In some ways, maybe I have been taking you for granted."

Buffy didn't comment on that, which somewhat confirmed it for Angel—and even more everything else she'd been going through lately that was weighing her down: surely way more than he even knew about yet—but she also didn't let the moment end there, either, as she gathered up her things and began heading up the lobby’s main stairway:

For over her shoulder she said, "But don't give up on me, either, Angel… I mean, Buffy + Angel always equaled forever."

And, Angel, with a small smile spreading across his face, found that he could only agree with her there.

Author's Note: I thought of this one night when I was trying to think of what jobs Buffy could have in the future.

And I think if someone could explain math for her so that it clicked, something like this COULD be possible. It somewhat reminds me of myself. Like, I was pretty dang good at math, actually, when people would took the time to make it make sense to me.

My one teacher, actually, became a math teacher because she loved factoring so much and thought it was fun, so that was inspired by her.

I think this was initially supposed to end a wee bit happier, with them getting back together. But I feel like this kind of fits the S6 vibes better. Buffy’s just going through too much right now to dive straight back into the Bangel relationship. And it’s still pretty happy, because we all know they’ll find their way back to each other eventually. But, anyway.

[diavalkitty]

[tampire]

Crowley and Aziraphale and Vice and Mature returns one more time in Good Omens Season 3 and King of Fighters XV

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

Good Omens 3 update 👀

(David Tennant was at a con in Germany today)

and about Michael's new play :) <3

[blood-loving-leech]

episode 1 here

episode 2 here

episode 3 here

episode 4 here

links for the first four hazbin hotel episodes for everyone who doesn’t want/can’t afford amazon prime, enjoy and share!!

[lady-blodreina]

It's not about winning, Cordelia. It's about what's at stake. And in this particular scenario, you were way more important than winning.... I did what I had to do.

Angel and Cordelia Chase, Angel 3x02: That Vision Thing

[mettywiththenotes]

I thought maybe you could love me like you used to

Even though I'm... different

But you changed too

So... here's to the new us

[liinchaan]

*Whistles* "Angel!"

[lenaellsi]

“Crowley is still an angel deep down” “Crowley is more of an angel than any of the archangels” “Crowley was only cast out because he needed to play his part in Armageddon, he's not a real demon” “Aziraphale wants to rebuild Heaven to be more like Crowley because he’s what an angel should be” no. Stop it. This is exactly where Aziraphale went wrong.

Crowley is 100% a demon. He's not actually a bit of an angel, and he's not cosmically better than any of the other demons we see in the series. He's much less vicious than most of them, yeah, but he's also much less vicious than most of the angels, because how “nice” a celestial being is has nothing to do with which side they're technically on. Crowley's kindness comes from him doing his best to help people despite the hurt he's suffered himself, not any sort of inherent residual or earned holiness. He was cast out just like the rest of the demons, and that's an important part of his history that shouldn't be minimized, excused, or, critically, 'corrected.'

Being angelic is not a positive or negative trait in the Good Omens universe. It's a species descriptor. Saying that Crowley is still an angel deep down because he helps people is an in-character thing for Aziraphale to think, certainly--Job and the final fifteen showed that in the worst possible way--but it's not something Crowley would ever react well to, and it's the main source of conflict in the entire "appoint you to be an angel" fiasco.

We know that Aziraphale thinks Crowley's fall was an injustice, but why? Well, because Crowley is actually Good, which means his fall was a mistake, or a test, or a regrettable error in judgment, or…something. Ineffable. Etc. The point is, he’s special, much better than those other demons, and if they can fix him and make him an angel again, everything will be fine! (So once Job's trials are over, everything will be restored to him? Praise be!) Aziraphale has to believe that Crowley's better traits come from traces of the angel he used to know and not the demon he's known for 6,000 years, because that’s how he can rationalize his incorrect view of Heaven as The Source Of Truth And Light And Good with his complicated feelings about Crowley's fall.

But Crowley's fall was not an injustice because he's actually a Good Person who didn't deserve it. Crowley's fall was an injustice because the entire system of dividing people into Good (obedient) and Bad (rebellious) is bullshit. Crowley is not an unfortunate exception to God's benevolence, he is a particularly sympathetic example of God's cruelty.

And really, Crowley doesn't behave at all like an angel, especially when he's at his best. All of the things that he's done that we as the audience consider Good are things that Heaven has directly opposed. (See: saving the goats and children in defiance of God in S2E2, convincing Aziraphale to give money to Elspeth despite Heaven's views on the "virtues of poverty" in S2E3, speaking out against the flood and the crucifixion in S1E3, tempting Aziraphale to enjoy earthly pleasures because he thinks they'll make him happy, stopping Armageddon.)

Heaven as an institution has never been about helping humanity. And that's not an issue of leadership, as Aziraphale seems to think--it's by design. Aziraphale's first official act as an angel toward humanity was to literally throw them to the lions. Giving them the sword wasn't him acting like an angel, it was just him being himself. Heaven doesn't care about humans. It's not supposed to. It's supposed to win the war against Hell, with humans as chess pieces at best and collateral damage at worst.

Yes, it's easier to think that there are forces that are supposed to be fundamentally good. It's easier to think that Aziraphale is going to show those mean archangels and the Metatron what’s coming to them and reform Heaven into what it "should" be, and that God is actually super chill and watching all of this while shipping ineffable husbands and cheering for them the whole way. And of course it's easier to take Crowley, who Aziraphale (and the audience) adores, and say that he deserves to be on the Good team much more than all those angels and demons that we don’t like. But that's not how it works. People are more complicated than that, even celestial beings.

Crowley is a demon, and the tragedy of his character is not that he's secretly a good guy who is being forced to be evil; the tragedy is that he's lived his whole life stuck between two institutional forces that are both equally hostile to the love he feels for the universe and the beings in it. There are no good and bad guys. There are no "right people." Every angel, demon, and human is capable of hurting or helping others based on their choices. That is, in fact, the entire fucking point.

[diavalkitty]

✨Some Starmaker's hc✨

[stell4rlune]

these two have been haunting me for the past 6 years. there will be more, they are ruining my life 💔