#immediately runs to tell Janja

[spottedmischief]

he was cute then sinister and then cute again

[devilsrecreation]

I just thought of this:

So I’m thinking in my crackfic, after Jasiri and Kenge come back from Oz (as in wake up from a dream) and she’s telling everyone about it, Janja jokingly says “Next time, I’m goin’ to a fantasy world”, hinting at a joke sequel crackfic which I’ll never make.

And now I give you…..Janja in Wonderland

Janja follows what he swears is Ushari’s ghost down a hole or an Aardvark den into a strange new world where everyone seems to be crazy

The cast:

Janja as Alice

Ushari as the White Rabbit (ghost snake)

Sumu plays the role of the Doorknob but instead is the gatekeeper

Cheezi and Chungu as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum

Mzingo and his Parliament as the Flowers

Shupavu and Njano as the Cheshire Cat (skinks)

Kenge as the Caterpillar

Reirei as the Mad Hatter

Kiburi as the March Hare

Goigoi is that little door mouse inside the teacup cuz he’s so sleepy

Zira as the Queen of Hearts

Scar as the King of Hearts

The rest of the Outlanders as cards

Azaad gets the role of the Dodo, with the Night Pride participating in the Caucus Race

Extra notes:

-Janja’s the self aware one this time. He recognizes all of his friends but decides to play along for the hell of it

-Wema and Tunu play the role of Dinah (Alice’s cat), who follow Janja until he falls into the hole. Then they do that little kid “BYYYYEEEEEE!!!”

-Janja never cries, instead he gets pissy and fed up with everything. “Hey, that ain’t fair!” and “Oh, that is some bullshit” is a running gag

-Kiburi gets an accessory this time. He wears a gold chain and a cute little bowtie

-Instead of smoking, Janja finds Kenge using a tree as a punching bag. He’s also carved vowels in various trees with his claws. He gets mad when Janja grows bigger than him

-The scene where Alice gets stuck in the White Rabbit’s house doesn’t happen here. Mainly cuz I wouldn’t know what to do with it

-The “eat me” and “drink me” things still exist, but it’s a bone instead of a biscuit and a drink bowl instead of a bottle

-The minute Janja sees Scar and Zira, he immediately believes he’s gonna die 😭. It goes as well as you would expect

-Mzingo and his parliament are basically a club where they talk about random stuff while holding various types of flowers

-The fic ends with Janja waking up from his dream and everybody thinking he’s crazy Jfhhfgdg

[cant-really-remember]

Good Omens from a Cult Perspective

And I don’t mean the fandom cult…

I wrote a hasty meta about being a cult survivor and watching GO (here) and I was hoping to start parsing out some of the things. I wanted to start off talking about the final fifteen.

Starting here feels the most natural because it was this scene that I felt so so deeply.

Before I dive in, I want to lay down some foundations so this can be easier to follow.

Things to know

-Cults can be benign, the proper way to distinguish dangerous ones is calling them “high control groups”. I will be talking about high control groups only, using the shorthand “cults”. Also I will speak of “inside” and “outside” to describe the “us and them” nature of cultic systems.

-Cults use a system to organizes people around a doctrine, a charismatic leader, or both. Akin to fascism, complete obedience is expected. This can be achieved in many way, but the most common are: behavior, thought, and environment control.

-“Bounded choice” is a term from Janja Lalich (an incredible cult scholar) from a book of the same name. She describes that cults hijack peoples’ free will by making them think they have choices, but really the are bounded to the reality of the cult. So people inside feel like they are making choices, but the things they have to choose from are ONLY within the rules or world of the cult. Every choice is, at its core, “do what we say or you are out”.

-Cults are not just robes and incense. It’s not even always a group of random people. Families can function like cults. One-on-one abusive relationships can be set up as a cultic system. My story has all three.

-People in cults, and to a much higher degree people who are born in to cults, are not allowed to have an identity that is separate from the cult. Their sense of self is defined by the cult. An extremely cool term I learned while studying cults is “arbiter of existence” - the cult essentially tells you who you are and, at the end of the day, they tell you if you are. They can tell you that you aren’t, that you don’t exist. They can - and often do - cut you off and erase your existence, in their world, you will have never existed. This is a common practice and an even more common threat. Sound familiar?

-Lastly, Aziraphale = he, Crowley = she (babygirl)

The final fifteen

Really more like the final 21. I want to start when the Metatron shows up. Quick run down:

Metatron shows up, he isn’t recognized by the beautitudes, immediately demands validation (asking Crowley who he is), then demands obedience, and sidles up to Aziraphale with a small gift and some doddering old man charm.

Next we see him assure Aziraphale “you don’t have to answer immediately, take all the time you need…go and tell your friend the good news”. Then, in flashback, we see him reassuring Aziraphale that he is a great leader and honest (I’m pretty sure he is neither) and *harmlessly* mentioning that he has seen Aziraphale’s “de facto partnership with the demon Crowley”.

After this is when the wheels fall off. So I want to stop here and make cult connections.

painting by @aliceblakeart

The cult connection

In my analysis of the final 21 through the lens of cult survivorship, this is how I identify the parts. But I do have to first state that Neil Gaiman grew up as both a mainstream Jew and a Scientologist, as well as attended a highly religious Christian school.

Heaven and Hell are both cults - Heaven is a regimented, highly organized cult (like Scientology) and Hell is oppressive and insidious but much less strict (like, ironically, mainstream Judaism). Crowley was ejected from the cult of Heaven for asking questions - this is literally why LOTS of people get get kicked out and shunned from their cults - and she has found a new cult, Hell.

Cult members are, by necessity, optimists. They HAVE to believe there is a greater good, especially when they are enduring or witnessing violence or oppression. They are trained to think that the small things don’t matter (like Job’s children) because there are more blessings in store for the future. Aziraphale, as we see through the entirety of GO, is struggling with this. Crowley isn’t struggling with it, she knows it’s crap. She knows Heaven and Hell are both full of shit. But she just goes along as far as she can.

Ethereal/Occult, by Me 😇

Surviving a cult

It’s takes a lot of mental and emotional fortitude to survive inside and outside of a cult. While inside, you are constantly being asked/forced to do things against your own moral judgement. You are expected to push past your own boundaries to achieve the cult’s (or the leader’s) goals - no matter how ineffable they may be. You exist in a world of mental gymnastics. When you are confronted with hypocrisy or just plain bad deeds, you really only have a few choices: deny it, justify it, or let it start to crack at your sense of self.

This is where Aziraphale is. We see him in denial, we see him performing feats of mental gymnastics, and then we see him let the truths begin to crack him. Now from a person looking in from the outside, we can celebrate these cracks! They mean freedom, right?! But these cracks come with the most, absolute, devastatingly heartbreaking pain.

Crowley knows this pain. She is now an outsider. (I know she is still in a cult, but let’s just focus on Heaven right now). She has been ejected and shunned and possibly her memory has been wiped. Crowley’s existence as an angel is no more. She knows the cruel pain of the million light year free-style dive from the naïveté and comfort of the her life as an ethereal being into a dark, disgusting place.

I have been both inside and outside of a cult. I have known people on the outside when I was inside and I have known people inside when I was out. These are two sides of an extremely emotionally complicated coin. When you are in, looking out, you see the freedoms and the fun but you also see it as so lonely without your cult and confusing. The cult is your constant companion, either actually physically or just mentally. It guides your choices, it has rules for everything so you don’t have to do that nasty critical thinking stuff. Yuck. And the cult gives you meaning, it provides members with a higher purpose, it tells them who they are, and it even defines the boundaries and rules of the world. If your cult tells you that gravity only works if you wish every fifteen minutes, you will spend your entire life wishing every fifteen minutes - not daring to stop because if you do, gravity will cease and everyone on the planet will go floating off in to space. A cult can also tell you that certain things don’t work, like perhaps that an angel and a demon cannot be friends. It’s physically impossible. It is against the rules of physics. This, again, is where Aziraphale is.

On the outside looking in, you have so much more information. And a lot of the that information is pain. At least at first. With time and therapy, the pain will hopefully melt away or be healed. But Crowley ain’t there yet, she is still standing in the window grieving the loss of her angelic existence. Well, at least, in S1. By the end of S2, she has figured out they are toxic and she doesn’t need either of them. So the burden of information weighs heavy on Crowley. She knows the absolute gut-wrenching pain of leaving Heaven, but she also knows the lightness of leaving it’s fascism behind.

I have had more Crowley experiences in my life, most recently my sister leaving our cult and my best friend leaving her abusive relationship. For many years, I have been in close relationship with both of them while they were deep in their respective cults and then witnessed them leaving (the latter left three times). I wanted to grab them and shake them and yell at them and say RUN!! But I knew it wouldn’t do a lick of good. I knew it would just cause more pain. I knew that the only best option is to stay right there, available for support, and as a constant reminder that there is a life on the outside.

(If you know whose this is, I would love to give credit)

How this translates to Crowley and Aziraphale over the years

We know the dynamic well: Aziraphale digs his heels in and Crowley runs. But if you peel back just a few layers of the well-crafted artifice, it is Crowley who never waivers. Aziraphale constantly reminds her of the wide and deep fissure that exists between them. Or at least Heaven says it exists. That fissure. They are “hereditary enemies”, they are the bad guys, there can’t be an “us”. Aziraphale is still so deeply indoctrinated by Heaven that he believes any relationship with Crowley is literally impossible.

Aziraphale lobs cruel insults and constantly downplays how much Crowley means to him. Crowley just sometimes gets hurt and leaves the scene. But Crowley comes back because she knows that it’s not Aziraphale saying that, it’s Heaven.

When my sister was still in, the only times she said anything cruel to me was when it came from someone else. I could hear it, in the way she was talking and in the words she used. They weren’t hers. And I knew the words weren’t hers because I knew my sister deep underneath all the cult stuff. So I would get off the phone and draw a boundary and leave the scene. But here is where my and Crowley’s stories diverge. She always went back and apologized.

This is Crowley still feeding into the cult dynamic. In a cult, the leader and/or doctrine in never wrong. So you become extraordinarily adept at taking responsibility for everything, no matter what. It becomes second nature. I did it in all my relationships until I realized where it came from and that it is just pisspoor boundaries. But Crowley is scared and doesn’t want to lose Aziraphale and doesn’t think her love is stronger than Heaven. So, instead of holding her boundary, Crowley comes back and asks for forgiveness from Aziraphale every time.

We all know where Aziraphale needs growth - he needs to leave the damn cult - but this is where Crowley needs growth. She has to walk away and stay away. In my own life, I played this game with my sister back and forth until I realized that I had nothing to apologize for. She was being cruel and crossing my boundaries. I was reacting accordingly. In an extremely painful decision, I told her that I couldn’t talk to her anymore because of the way she was treating me. I can’t tell you how excruciating this was. But, two years later, it’s the best thing I could have done.

That day something snapped in her. When she saw me walk away because of how the cult was expecting her to behave, she began the slow and painful process of getting out.

Smitten, I believe, by Me 😇

The fifteen, for real this time

So in this analogy, the Metatron is the cult leader, Aziraphale is in the cult but waffling, and Crowley is on the outside trying to help him get out.

The Metatron has done all the things a cult leader/abuser would do:

-lied through flattery (you’re a great leader)

-threaten very passively (I’ve seen the de facto partnership)

-given a gift (the coffee)

-the “im just like you” moment (I’ve ingested things in my day)

-isolation (taking Aziraphale out of his safe space and away from a person who would actually stand up for him)

-lying about having a choice (you don’t have to answer immediately, take all the time you need - but really he shows up ten minutes later and says “ok let’s go” and we never see Aziraphale actually give an answer)

-making something awful sound good (tell your friend the good news)

I can list these things from memory because this scene is seared in my memory. When I saw it the first time I cried like a baby and it wasn’t because I was so invested in our ineffable idiots. It was because I had seen this same thing happen to my best friend. I saw her get hoovered back into a relationship with her abuser twice.

What you have to understand about trying to leave a cult is that you never really want to. Something has to push you over the edge. Something has to break. Something that’s so f’ing bad that you decide to essentially elect not to exist anymore. I did this, I elected not to exist to my family anymore. But this was after so, so many years of going back after leaving and being treated just as poorly, if not worse.

The cult/leader/abuser is a master at keeping you just far enough from the edge that you don’t fall over. One of the ways they can keep you is that the cult dynamic is set up so nothing in the world feels better than being in the cult’s/leader’s/abuser’s favor. This is the pinnacle of validation, it is life giving (because remember, they are the arbiter of existence).

The act of drawing you back from the edge is known as hoovering - like sucking you back in with a giant Hoover vacuum. There are many plays in the playbook for this, but the particular one the Metatron uses is the “you can have it all” play.

See, the Metatron knows that Aziraphale doesn’t want to leave Crowley but he also knows that Aziraphale desperately wants to be in Heaven’s favor. Aziraphale was trained to desperately want that. There are little moments in S2 where you can see him getting validation from Crowley (in lieu of Heaven’s approval) and his eyes light up, he even laments not being able to report to Heaven. So the Metatron proposes a “you can have it all” scenario.

Come back, we will flatter you and give you approval and status, oh, and you can bring your twink with you. It will be totally cool and you will be able to do whatever you want and we trust you to make decisions and you will be in charge and you will have it all just perfect.

Except it’s all a lie. We know, from the Gabriel tapes, that you can’t say no. No matter if you are the Supreme Archangel. It’s not totally cool and you better tow the line. And Crowley knows this, too. Crowley knows that Aziraphale is being lied to, again. She knows where this goes.

So when the happy-arms bright-eyes proposal of going back to Heaven comes out, Crowley - after being aghast at Aziraphale’s naïveté- makes a last ditch effort to pull Aziraphale out the door and over the edge. “How can someone so clever be so stupid?” The final fifteen is Crowley slowly coming to realize that this is a train wreck she has absolutely no power to stop or divert. The kiss was an attempt at the grab-their-shoulders-and-shake-furiously that we all feel when we see someone clearly making a mistake. And “don’t bother” is Crowley succumbing to the speed and velocity of the train barreling down the tracks. She knows that the only thing that will stop this is the train actually hitting something.

Tell me you said no, by Me 😇

Aziraphale has made his bounded choice. He has believed the lies and manipulation and future faking and thinks he is making the best choice for them AND for the world. He will change Heaven, he will save humanity, he will be with Crowley. It’s literally perfect. He can not understand why Crowley doesn’t see it.

So where does that leave us

Well, in the worst case scenario, Aziraphale goes back to Heaven, back in to the fold, becomes totally indoctrinated and forgets Crowley. But, Neil said it was going to be ok and I trust him.

I think that two wonderful things will happen. I think Crowley will hold her boundary. I think she will learn her own value and that she deserves to be treated with care and kindness. I think we see this in the way she left the last time. She walked out and waited. Didn’t run back, didn’t apologize, didn’t beg for the forgiveness she pretends she doesn’t want. She stood there leaned against the Bentley with a straight backbone like “I am worth it and if you can’t see it you’re an idiot.” She is saying, “you have to come to me this time.”

And I think the moment outside the elevator is the train-hitting-something for Aziraphale. When the Metatron says “it’s called the second coming” you hear a miracle sound. Forever I thought that this was the Metatron putting some sort of trance on Aziraphale because that would explain the creepy smile, right? But after the sound, he turns to look at Crowley one last time. If he was in a trance, he wouldn’t have done that. Then I realized, that was his snap! All the cracks and doubt and things Crowley has been telling him finally snapped into place. The miracle was putting “A Nightingale Sang” on the radio of the Bentley.

Hear me out: we know that Aziraphale has established a connection with the Bentley. We know that song means a lot of things for them. And now we know that Aziraphale has possibly had slow motion train crash moment.

Aziraphale is well aware of the mortal/ethereal danger he is in in the presence of the Metatron. He could be smoted/smited/smitten on the spot, so he is not going to turn on his heel and run back to Crowley. He will send a message and start to make his escape plans.

I don’t want to make predictions past that because Neil is incredible and I want him to tell the story.

Thanks for reading of you got all the way down here ☺️ I have so much to say about the intersection of cults and GO.

[the-depressed-shiny-buneary]

Bullies: Shani Valencia

Shani lived in the Unova region with a clan of other shifters, however, she left the clan as the current leader was being a dictator as he was very harsh when it came to punishments, Shani soon left to find other shifters to make her own clan. During her search, she met Renee not long after Renee was bitten and the two became great friends. When Renee told Shani about how she was nervous about telling her parents she’s a Were-Mightyena, Shani was the one who encouraged her to tell them what happened and she almost did until Renee found out that her parents worked for Cipher, when Shani heard she immediately offered Renee a place to live. They were found by Janja and a few others and joined his group. Shani is known for her sassy nature, she actually gets along with Chetari.

Her Pokemon:

Pyroar- Shani caught her Pyroar back when she was a Litleo that had just left the pride, the two bonded and became close friends, which is when Litleo would follow Shani around. When she entered the first town she managed to buy a Pokeball and officially caught Litleo and not long after training and battling, Litleo evolved into Pyroar. As a Litleo, Pyroar was silly and very friendly, she would always make Shani and Renee laugh by doing silly little tricks and dances but when she evolved she became almost motherly to Shani, Renee and Shani’s Shinx since she’s still young and needs a mother figure. She’s very protective of her trainer and her other teammates, often being the first one to protect them when danger is around. She mostly stays out of her Pokeball.

Caught in a Pokeball.

Ability is Rivalry.

Moves are Hyper Beam, Flamethrower, Overheat, Hyper Voice, Sunny Day, Solar Beam, Return, Fire Blast, Round and Retaliate.

Shiny Shinx- Shinx was abandoned by her pride once she hatched revealing her yellow coat instead of a normal blue coat, as soon as she was left behind she was scared and would always run away from trainers to catch her or other Pokemon attacking her, she felt alone, scared and betrayed whenever she managed to find a hiding spot, there were times she wanted to rip out her fur because that was what would cause so much pain for her but something always stopped her. Soon she met Shani’s Pyroar and was happy to have a mother figure and when she first saw Shani, she was afraid of what Shani would do to her but was surprised to see how gentle Shani was. Once Shinx was comfortable being with Shani she let herself be captured. Even if she’s in a better living environment, Shinx is still scared and timid, as such she clings to Shani, Shani’s Pyroar and Shani’s Zebstrika as she never got a mother's or father’s affection. She’s also afraid of battling Pokemon bigger than her and would rather use moves like Flash, Thunder Wave, Baby-Doll Eyes or Quick Attack to getaway instead of fight. She’s healing slowly and will recover with time.

Caught in a Luxury Ball.

Ability is Intimidate.

Moves are Thunder Wave, Flash, Quick Attack, Baby-Doll Eyes, Thunder Fang, Ice Fang, Howl, Spark, Charge, and Round.

Zebstrika- Shani found Zebstrika when he was still a Blitzle. Blitzle was a bit of a loner and wouldn’t really say much to anyone, it was after he evolved that he started to open up to the others on the team. He gained a crush on Pyroar and shortly after confessing they became official mates and he sees Shinx as a daughter, in return, she sees him as a father figure. In battle, he’s rougher and he has a bit of a short temper, he’s also easily irritable both in and out of battle, he also can conduct a lot of electricity and will sometimes need to discharge it so he could stay calm but at the same time if he doesn’t get enough he can lose energy, so Shinx has to give him some of her electricity or Shani has to give him electricity herself by pedaling an exercise bike attached to a light bulb and have Zebstrika absorb the electricity it produces.

Caught in a Pokeball.

Ability is Lightning Rod.

Moves are Ion Deluge, Stomp, Wild Charge, Thrash, Agility, Thunderbolt, Round, Magnet Rise, Return and Low Kick.

[spottedmischief]

“Uhm - teen.“ He quickly corrected. “I ain’t a baby no more.”

As soon as the younger hyena picked up on her unease, Cheezi reminded himself that it was best to maybe not bring up the subject of Scar around her. Dad and uncle are a lot more upset but she's afraid, that much he can tell.

It's funny when Pridelanders are upset and shivering so much in terror that they panic and run but he does not like seeing the trio like that.

"What's wrong with being different? I know Jasiri has that whole sisi ni sawa thing in going, but why do we gotta be the same?"

Just another thing he does not quite understand.

“Well, duh. She is a Pridelander. They get to have everything."

Although she did say she lived in the backlands originally. If life was easier on her, Cheezi has no idea. But she has food, water and nobody kicks her out for being a certain species. One thing was sure: the secret friendship was not easy for both of them at least.

Though a short bitter laugh escaped his throat at her next words. Yeah. They don’t - but they will understand it soon enough. He will make sure of that.

“That’s just it - they think it. Why do they expect other animals who don’t even live there 'cause they ain't even allowed in to see the value of it too an‘ expect ya to understand it immediately? ‘Cause if ya don’t, they get angry and throw ya out. Take their stupid circle of life thingy for example.“

Cheezi rolls his eyes.

"Janja said that if ya ask anyone outside the Pridelands, the circle of life is for fools. An' besides...It's just an excuse for 'em to let others starve, kick 'em out so lions can keep their power. They think they and everythin' they do is so important than anythin' else but it's not. An' everyone who thinks otherwise? Pffft."

At least that’s how he views the situation. Respect the circle of life, blah, blah, blah. He sees no reason to respect them or their things when they can't be bothered to do the same.

He paused.

“Wait. Who said anythin‘ about me an‘ a royal mjuzi?“

Her ears pinned down close to her neck, frowning as she simply listened. A lot more had apparently been going on than he said and he was more troubled than he had been willing to openly tell her.....she needed to talk to Ed about that.

She didn't feel like the right hyena for this.....Ed would be better--but she was here and she would do her best.

Gosh...Kupatana. She hadnt thought about Kupatana in so many seasons it almost felt like a dream.

"Not literal thorns, baby. It means that youve hit a rough patch because of how differently y've grown up that youll have to move through carefully t' get through it without getting even more hurt."

The news of Janja meeting with Scar alone seemed to make her uncomfortable as her shoulders tensed and her front paws clawed at the dirt. "Alone huh?"

Just like her. That wasn't good.

"You and a royal mjuzi are....bout as different as you can be. She sounds young, just like you but life seems t' have been a lot easier on her. Pridelanders didnt lose as much as we did seasons ago and they dont care to think about how much we lost so they cant really understand how it feels to lose your whole family....just like its hard for us to understand their traditions and how important they think they are."

She took a deep breath, letting it out in a slow sigh.

Putting themselves in danger for one animal. That sounded familiar.

"No one should expect ya to defy Scar by yourselves.....I know how hard that is. I understand cause I did it---but she's never had to do that so it's gonna be hard for her to understand how it feels. She's never been the one directly under Scar's paw."