#knowledge base optimization

[isubhamdas]

Knowledge Base SEO-Visibility and Engagement

Optimizing your knowledge base for search engines is crucial for driving organic traffic and enhancing customer engagement. By following these expert tips, you can ensure your knowledge base is SEO-ready and provides valuable insights to your audience. Continue reading to learn how to boost your knowledge base SEO and improve your online visibility. Optimizing Your Knowledge Base for SEOEnable…

[jamesn903]

Mastery Series: Elevate Your HR Service Delivery with ServiceNow Knowledge Management

Discover the power of ServiceNow HRSD Knowledge Management with this comprehensive guide. Learn how to streamline HR processes, enhance employee experience, and ensure compliance through documentation, SOPs, governance, and practical implementation tips.

Building a Strong Foundation: Essential Prework for ServiceNow HRSD Knowledge Management Before you begin implementing ServiceNow HRSD Knowledge Management, it’s advisable to review the resources provided by ServiceNow to ensure a solid foundation for success. Here’s a review of the format and content of the resources mentioned: 1. Getting Started with Knowledge Management This resource is a…

[kafus]

how to grind IQ fast in PMD EoS

alternative title: why combee is fucking cracked

combee. yes. combee. is one of the most useful pokemon in explorers of sky and i’m not kidding. if you’ve ever wanted to grind up to max IQ on your pokemon, especially a lot of pokemon, Combee Is The Answer. unfortunately this does not work in time and darkness nearly as well because they don’t have one of the items that makes combee so good but you can still do it. much slower. this whole thing requires some setup but once you have it set up you can do it forever!!

so. combee has this funny little ability called honey gather which gives a pretty large chance of finding nectar in treasure boxes from pokemon it KOs.

why is this important? Well. nectar is one the best consumable IQ boosting item in the game. straight up gives your pokemon +10 IQ instead of gummis which give a varied amount from +1-5 based on type matchups (usually on the lower end). wonder gummis give +15 IQ so they’re technically better but there’s no good way to grind for those quickly.

so yeah honey gather is already cool enough because you can KO pokemon, hoard treasure boxes, and then open them for a ton of nectar, but that shit is slow going all things considered and that’s where sky’s exclusive items come in

the nectar bow, combee’s exclusive item, raises the chance of treasure boxes dropping while its in the bag. i can confirm from doing this myself that an absolute fuckton of boxes can be obtained this way.

you can see the method here. you get a combee, get the nectar bow, and then go to town on some pokemon and open all those boxes for more nectar than you’ve ever seen in your life before. here’s how:

1. recruit a combee and keep it as a combee. vespiquen won’t work because it loses honey gather upon evolution. you can find combee in apple woods on floors 6-12. apparently in darkness you have to complete a mission to unlock combee there first but i’m assuming most people reading this are playing sky anyways

2. this step is optional but recommended. level the combee up just a little bit, i personally did this by bringing it as a partner into postgame dungeons (i personally used spatial rift) and murdering shit with my overleveled hero/partner and letting the combee soak up all the experience. it will make life easier for you because combee straight up only has two attacking moves, gust and bug bite at levels 1 and 13 respectively, which are weak as hell. doesn’t learn anything through TM either. you want to KO shit fast and you know. not die while farming boxes

3. assuming you’re playing sky, get the nectar bow. you can find it in croagunk’s swap shop in wigglytuff’s guild’s basement. the items in the shop change every new in-game day, but there seems to be a higher chance of items appearing for the pokemon you JUST used in a dungeon, so if it isn’t there, go into a dungeon like beach cave or whatever with combee as your lead and either escape orb or speedrun through real quick and then check croagunk again. you’ll need 5 other random exclusive items to trade in for it which you can get from random treasure boxes and 150 poke.

4. go into any dungeon with combee lead and the nectar bow in the bag and start beating shit up, preferably with a lot of pokemon weak to combee’s moves. i have some superstition about later dungeons dropping more boxes so i go to mystifying forest with a nearly level 50 combee but that’s probably overkill. bring minimal items so you can pick up a bajillion boxes

5. leave the dungeon. open boxes at xatu’s. profit

also by the way. this isn’t required at all but i highly recommend using your first nectar grind to get combee’s IQ up to 850 (just under 9 stars) for the IQ skill Pierce Hurler, since it lets you use nectar on three pokemon at once instead of just one. yes this requires 85 nectar but it’s WORTH IT I PROMISE!!

this is my combee. you can see it has pierce hurler which lets the items it throws impact all the pokemon the item hits along its path. when using my nectar or other useful items such as vitamins or joy seeds, i lead with combee, go to beach cave because it’s completely harmless, and hand combee the lockon specs which ensures it doesn’t miss at all. your partner pokemon that you’re using the items on also need to have item master enabled in their IQ so they actually use the items thrown at them and item catcher disabled so that they don’t catch the items. i line them up in a row by setting their tactics to “wait there”. this lets you essentially multiply all your items by three like this (the recording i had on hand was with iron but nectar works too):

and that’s how to make IQ grinding easy asf for the rest of your explorers playthrough. i use this a ton so i can experiment with different pokemon in the postgame for funsies. also good for grinding certain pokemon up to fast friend for recruiting kecleon :) hope this helpsdsofkfds

(oh and side note, you can get one nectar per sentry duty by going as fast as possible but purposefully giving the wrong answer on just one footprint so that you get the highest score without getting a perfect for making no mistakes, but this is wayyy slower and i wouldn’t do that for an extended period of time!!)

[esleep]

baldy gate looks fun but i don't have a pc that can run it or a ps5 so in order to play it i will have to spend approximately $1500. well there's other pastimes.

[arolesbianism]

If you see me talking abt build plans that won't actually work keep your mouth shut I'm trying to fuck around and find out by myself over here

[ghostlyferrettarot]

✨️💎Jupiter and the signs💎✨️

❗️All the observations in this post are based on personal experience and research, it's completely fine if it doesn't resonate with everyone❗️

✨️Paid Services ✨️ (Natal charts and tarot readings) Open!

🌟If you like my work you can support me through Ko-fi. Thank you!🌟

💎Masterlist💎

♣︎Jupiter in Aries: They tend to be more enthusiastic, assertive, energetic, and full of ideas about how to initiate, promote, or expand ideas. You can also be more stubborn and very persuasive in getting people to embark on your plans and ideas. As Jupiter represents the principle of growth and the notion of something higher, the actions of those born under the influence of Jupiter in Aries can lead to personal development more easily.

♣︎Jupiter in Taurus: indicates a predisposition to use money and material resources correctly and beneficially. Jupiter in the sign of Taurus has a strong tendency to attract wealth and have a good sense of the value of things. Those who obtain it like to enjoy material comfort, good food, various forms of art and the good things in life in general. They appreciate what is good and what has personal value, even if it is expensive.

♣︎Jupiter in Gemini: they tend to be intellectually curious, they can read a lot or be that type of person who is always on the Internet looking for new information, news, curiosities and teachings. Their curiosity can be aroused in different areas, so they tend to be mentally restless and enjoy movement. Valuing communication is an essential part of those who have this position, for example Working in the communication industry, whether with journalism , advertising, public relations or tourism.

♣︎Jupiter in Cancer: these individuals focus on family experiences, knowledge base, past and personal roots. The place where they belong and call their own, is also a place where friends and acquaintances can find greater comfort in case they have problems guiding the course of life. There is a desire to create a safe, comfortable, friendly, welcoming and prosperous family environment that can also be used for educational and fun activities.

♣︎Jupiter in Leo: Optimism, generosity and a kind way of being are highlighted. You tend to like to be admired and valued. Jupiter in the sign of Leo brings the tendency of leadership. Its natives generally arouse enthusiasm in other people, and therefore have the potential to be good leaders. The generosity, firmness and reliability of these natives stands out.

♣︎Jupiter in Virgo: The person will care about the details and the precision of his behavior. It influences the person to appreciate the details, the kind that he can do a lot with a little. They have a superior, prudent, intellectual, analytical and practical nature; They differentiate what is essential from what is not essential, truth from fiction, what is valid and what is not. Their judgment is generally excellent.

♣︎Jupiter in Libra: They are people who tend to worry about the moral principles that guide society, their unions and their interpersonal relationships. Natives with Jupiter in Libra believe that love and justice can create a much more harmonious social order, being more generous people and, for this reason, more popular and loved. These personal characteristics can make them develop activities related to the public. It is not uncommon for people with this position to be attracted to becoming diplomats, salespeople, presenters, etc.

♣︎Jupiter in Scorpio: tends to have a greater appreciation for everything that is hidden, secret. They like to investigate and delve into other people's minds, as well as more ethereal topics, such as death, the occult and religion, for example. Jupiter in Scorpio can discover secret information about the private affairs of others in an extremely natural way. People have the potential to become more resourceful and have very strong and resolute opinions regarding their beliefs.

♣︎Jupiter in Sagittarius: One of the main interests of those who have Jupiter in Sagittarius is higher knowledge. Topics such as philosophy or religion, education and foreign cultures have a lot of meaning and are appreciated. They tend to choose their own system of thought that will govern their behavior and the way they view life. This is the type of attitude that can earn a person the respect and admiration of others in many situations.

♣︎Jupiter in Capricorn: You can demonstrate greater economic or political responsibility, being prudent, cautious and trying to be fair in your judgments. For people with Jupiter in Capricorn, management, status and recognition tend to gain more importance. Due to Characteristics such as ambition, patience, administrative ability and the wisdom to deal with the resources acquired throughout life, those born with this position generally manage to save money and own property.

♣︎Jupiter in Aquarius: they tend to enjoy interacting with people of all classes, races or creeds, without much distinction or prejudice. They tend to be more tolerant and understanding, recognizing more easily that everyone has their place in the world and that in all positions there are lessons to learn. Jupiter in Aquarius are more likely to engage in philanthropic activities aimed at helping others.

♣︎Jupiter in Pisces: they tend to be more emotional, understanding and endowed with a greater sense of compassion. Having spiritual or philosophical convictions, with this positioning, becomes more possible; People can develop a more comprehensive, universal and fulfilling spiritual understanding. Because of this greater search for elevation, they tend to eventually enjoy moments of isolation, becoming more introspective. By meditating, you can better develop this intuition and renew yourself spiritually.

[astropookie]

asteroids related to love 💝

ao haru ride

ik this is too cheesy for my style but hope it may help :) these asteroids are just a few compared to the existing.

self love

hygeia (10): how to maintain a healthy relationship between body and soul.

medea (212): represents our healing ability. archetype of Pluto/scorpio. where we make mistakes again and again, vengeful, practically process of healing.

fated connections

devine (3561): if it has aspects with other’s person planets/asteroids could indicate a trascendental connection.

libby (5672): represents fated connections.

aura (1488): represents an intuitive connection.

karma (3811): indicates you’re destined to meet with these person due to past-life unfinished business.

destinn (6583): strong connection, destiny like.

pholus (5145): if it’s in synastry/composite chart, indicates unexpected events that would change the trajectory of your life -that has to do with this connection-.

sposetti (22354): means “married couple” in Italian. marriage potential, past life marriages or special connections.

betrayal

oenone (215): indicates people where you have been cheated on/ left by lovers or simply felt betrayal.

love synonyms

paeonia (1061): represents a flower that symbolizes love, honor and wealth.

olathe(18984): lovely, beautiful.

loving (432971): loving emotions.

ask (4894): represents the way you love someone, “love” in turkish.

liebe (7696): “love” in german. romantic expectations and needs.

pure/unconditional love

ceres (1): unconditional love, depth we’re willing to go for the ones we love.

alma (390): represents the desire of expanding our heart while time passes, optimism for love and romance.

agapenor (5023): simple appreciation. unconditional love that can last through ages, not only romantic. altruistic love.

valentine (447): sacrificial type of love, deep bonds between two people. indicates the urge to give our all without asking anything in return.

child (4580): represents our inner child. pure, unfiltered, innocent love.

isis (42): desire to nurture/protect the ones we love and care about. also may represent leadership qualities. loyalty, devotion, between others.

romantic love

amor (1221): means love in spanish. represents what we need to show/break patterns to commit with the person we want to love.

cupido (763): represents how you fall in love. I’ll think on this asteroid more like a “crush” type of “love”, innocent at first.

juno (3): can represent our romantic boundaries, what we will do for romantic -not necessarily- relationships and I have a post of juno series if you’d like an interpretation of your juno sign.

union (1585): inner need of deep and meaningful connections -any type-. indicates qualities of the relationship in composite charts.

adonis (2101): ideal type, plus if you like masculine.

groom (5129): indicates how do we approach role of marriage -long term commitment- in their life. who you may end up having this relationship, depending on your preferences.

briede (19029): like asteroid groom, associated with commitment, etc. like the name, dependa in preferences.

others

companion (8490): shows wanting to be all the time with that person. what are you looking for in a long term connection (romantic or not).

anteros (1943): manner which you reciprocate love, requited love.

luda (1158): where do people adore/love you.

link (3505): indicates the type of connection -close- between partners.

lovelock (51663): obsessive love, like the name.

galatea (74): imo idealization of our type of a person.

akashi (5881): requires introspection/exploration. hidden knowledge and potential. has to do with how our past relationships affects our present and future.

(*ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈)ꕤ૮꒰ྀི⸝⸝> . <⸝⸝꒱ྀིა ∗ ࣪ ˖༺ ♡ ༻˖ ࣪ ∗ */ᐠ - ˕ -マ✩ (˶˃ᆺ˂˶)∗ ࣪ ( ๑ ˃̵ᴗ˂̵ )و ✩

♡ Based on personal experience and I’ve analyzed in my surroundings.

♡ English is not my first language.

♡ I’m not a profesional astrologer.

Thank youu. baibaiii🫣🫶🏼💋

Do not copy. Please give me credits.

[ceilidho]

prompt: you keep seeing apparitions of a dead special forces operative who's been haunting the barracks. (light angst; nsfw) (actual ghost simon riley)

-

War dogs chewed up and spat out by the machinery of war.

It is an incalculable blow to learn of his death. Worse still that you learn of it by happenstance, one officer talking to another, only listening in because it’s been weeks since you’ve seen him and their voices go hushed in that way that makes your ears prick up. You’re sitting at a nearby table in the canteen when someone says the single most devastating words that have ever been spoken near you.

“They weren’t able to recover the whole body, just some of it. Pretty gruesome. Don’t know if you ever met him, but he was an alright guy—pretty quiet. Scary, yeah, but—I don’t know. He was fair. Got the job done though. Soap’s taking it pretty hard.”

You barely breathe at the news. Something is squeezing your heart until it overfills on the other side. 

You walk around base in a daze after that. It’s not anyone’s fault that you aren’t notified—no one was supposed to know. Your whole arrangement with Simon was predicated on the knowledge that it would never be revealed to your commanding officers or the rest of the infantry. Made sense at the time. Makes less sense now when your world is falling apart and you have no way of even requesting Ghost’s dog tags. 

Pain holds you upright like a splint while it also tries to smother you. You crawl back to your barracks after training the recruits, voice a hoarse whisper in your throat. Showers are an optimal place to cry, when maybe you won’t be heard. Grief is not grief when there’s nowhere for it to go. 

Maybe Soap was privy enough to Ghost’s life to know. He doesn’t spend time with you, but you see him once from across the tarmac on a flight out and his gaze lingers on you. There are deep troughs under his eyes, dark even with the distance between you. His posture is still, rigid; despite his uniform being pressed and his hair being cut and gelled into place, there is something singularly heavy weighing him down.

He nods from across the way to you. You grit your jaw and nod back. 

It’s the only time you’ll ever acknowledge it. Soap never seeks you out after that—maybe it’s too painful. Maybe shared pain isn’t always enough. 

The worst is only finding out weeks later that Ghost has been buried. That’s your closure. An offhand comment from an operations officer on a smoke break. Your numb hand flicking a lighter. Rain breaking in the early twilight hours and you stand in it so long that you shiver and shake on your way back to your room. 

Lightning that crackles in the storm clouds, illuminating the place where you just stood outside while you stare from your window. Illuminating someone standing where you just were. You squint, but they round the bend to one of the other buildings before you can make them out. 

Every soldier has a story. Conducting barracks checks on staff duty only to find a soldier with half their jaw missing asking for a cigarette. A marine approaching a soldier asking for his rifle, garbed in a ripped vest from early Iraq. Squad bays known for apparitions, known for hauntings. Figures seen from the trees, the half-shadowed remains of old tanks, burned and hollowed out, suddenly upright and mobile. 

In certain barracks, soldiers won’t even leave their rooms at night to use the washroom. They’d rather piss in old bottles or hold off until morning light altogether. It’s common enough to be joked about, for soldiers to trade stories in the mess over supper, trying to spook each other with the things they’ve seen or claimed to see. 

You can tell the ones who’ve actually seen things from those who haven’t though. The ones who have are often quieter, often only laugh a little. The truth is buried in their inability to fully commit to the bit. It’s the knowing that does that.

Knowing that there are things that death cannot hide. 

The first time you see Simon again, it’s not a homecoming. You know there’s something very wrong. 

It’s 3am and someone’s standing in front of your door. You feel it before you see them, feel something like every single hair on your body standing on end and the sudden lucid thought in the middle of a dream that you need to wake up. That you need to wake up right now. 

Heart racing when your eyes snap open. Sweat already slicking the backs of your knees. You’re lying on your side, hands curled close to your face, and you feel its gaze on you like the heaviest dread you’ve ever felt in your life. You stare at the wall that your bed is pushed up against until you find the courage to roll over.

Just a shape in the dark. A dark shape. Distinct from the rest of the darkness in your room. Tall as it is wide. The slightest motion to it, like breathing or the gentle swaying of the human body when it’s allowed to be loose. 

There’s a lamp on your end table. You flick it on without tearing your eyes away from the dark shape looming by the door, but when light unveils your room, it flickers away like a bad illusion. Just a jacket hung up on the back of the door. Your heart races still. 

When the light goes off, the shadow doesn’t reappear.

It might not be him, but something’s haunting you. You spoon cereal into your mouth in the morning with a shaking hand. It’s the massive shape of a body behind the shower curtain in your private bathroom that has you certain—certain—that someone’s there until you whip it to the side and see only tile wall. You know what you saw though, and you know from the way the top of it peeked over the curtain that it was blond. 

Weeks go by. You’re in a bivy sack and a voice you recognize wakes you up for watch. It’s the same voice that used to rumble low in your ear when you let him into your bed on leave (you always used to take them at the same time, no one the wiser). You’re back on base in your room and something leans its full weight onto your bed. You wake up to him sitting on the edge of your bed, blood dripping from an old wound. Him though, skull mask and all. Eyes shadowed always, black staring at you seeing and unseeing. 

You don’t need to ask what he wants from you. He lumbers around the barracks like a wraith that only you can see. Never truer to his old moniker than he is in death. A civilian worker flirts with you one day and he winds up in the infirmary. Fell down the stairs, another sergeant tells you when you ask. You smile tight, brittle. If only. 

He slips into your bed at night when the lights are shut and you’ve turned over onto your side. You can’t see him, but the bed compresses under his weight like it did when he was alive. He’s still for a minute, stare heavy on you while you lie there motionless, waiting him out. When he finally lays a hand on your hip, you flinch at how normal it feels. Like he didn’t go out and die one day. Like it’s really him at your back dragging a hand down the curve of your hip and over your thigh.

He divests you of your pyjamas the same way he used to in motel rooms, your apartment off-base, his cabin up north that you still have the key to but can’t bring yourself to visit. You let him. Shorts pulled down and kicked to the bottom of the bed, then your underwear. Shirt rucked up so he can fit a big, rough hand over your tit. His hands are solid where they touch you, nothing ghostly about them. He squeezes like the memory of your flesh is half-gone, like he needs to sink himself into you again. 

“Missed…you…” His voice comes like a deep rumble, tectonic plates shifting over the asthenosphere. 

The hand on your breast slides up, over the delicate skin of your throat, over where your pulse goes mad and you dry swallow because there’s nothing in your mouth. Over and up the curve of your cheek, thumb pressing against your lips, curling your top lip up until you’re almost kissing it. Then he lets go, hand coming back down to your hip. 

“Simon, are you—” you start, cut off on a gasp when he lifts your leg over his hip and something presses against your opening. Notches there, sinks in hot inch after hot inch. Head spinning and breath wild when he spears you on his thick length, half-tumbling over you until you’re lying prone on your bed. Simon’s as heavy as you remember, the full weight of him keeping you trapped there. You can only take. You can only draw in a deep breath and let out the softest sounds while he presses in, 

“Had to…come back,” the ghost of your old lover says, growling into your ear. “Couldn’t…leave you here…alone.”

You wonder what’s really behind the mask this time. His hands and dick feel flesh enough, but fear still quivers in your belly because you know that whatever it is pressing you down with a firm hand on your shoulder blade, it’s not fully him. 

You’ve heard of ghosts haunting places but never people. There’s something achingly loyal about the way he fucks you though. It’s dark and hot under him, and he mouths where he can, mask pulled up finally. Not that you can see. Better that you can’t, maybe. Pulsing in and out of your cunt, silent but for his shallow intakes of breath. He feels enormous and terrifying at your back. 

A big arm still clad in his old uniform jacket is braced beside your head. Simon whispers apologies into your hair; that he pulled himself out of a grave for a second time because he couldn’t untangle his soul from yours, but he got it wrong this time around. He didn’t make it in time. 

“I won’t leave you though, love,” he says around kisses laid tender on the nape of your neck. He bites the meat of your shoulder hard enough to leave an imprint of his teeth. “Never gonna leave you.” His words make you slicker, hotter; tightening around him until he snarls and fucks more viciously. A promise you thought he couldn’t keep. 

In the morning, you stare at yourself in the bathroom mirror. You take off your shirt and turn around. There’s a red bite mark on your upper left shoulder and it aches when you touch it.

[milkloafy]

TALES OF TEYVAT — PROLOGUE

after years and years of working at your soul-crushing nine to five, you reach your breaking point. while taking a walk to calm yourself down, you see a mysterious ad about a new job opening for a farmer— land and cottage included with no fee. wishing for change, you take a chance and follow the flyer's instructions, despite having no prior farming knowledge... it leads you the small town of teyvat where you meet a handful of charming and interesting individuals. can you learn to find the beauty in life once more? and maybe fall in love along the way...

taglist: @giamee @indarius @lybrin09

wc: ~1.0k

a/n: HOWDYYY i’m so excited to share the intro/prologue of this series with u all !! :3 this is already making me hyped for ayato’s route ahdkkakd but i think that’ll be the last one :> diluc route should be posted next week !!! i hope y’all enjoy and get immersed in the small town of teyvat hehe

“Do you really believe this will work?”

The Teyvat Commissioner sighed, but a hopeful look remained on his face. “I can’t be certain, Thoma. But the town of Teyvat was once self-sufficient an abundant with life.” Ayato paused, glancing down at the stack of papers on his desk. “If we are able to revitalize the farmland, we should grow less reliant on Celestia for our basic daily needs.”

Thoma’s expression soured at the mere mention of Celestia. “I have faith that our Commissioner made the right decision.”

Ayato smiled fondly at his retainer, delighted that even his most peculiar of plans would certainly have at least one supporter. “It seems we will find out soon. Come, let us attempt to tidy up the new farmer’s lodgings before they arrive.”

The first thing you noticed the moment you stepped food onto Teyvat was how quaint the town was.

Compared to the city you were from that was filled to the brim with skyscrapers and dreary highways, Teyvat was quite small. As you surveyed the land, you felt as if you would be able to traverse its perimeters by foot in less than day if you truly wanted.

It would certainly be different from what you were used to… 

You smiled widely as realization sunk in that this place would, in fact, be completely different from what you knew. And that sounded perfect. It was exactly what you wanted, after all.

As soon as you took your first breath of fresh air, you spotted a man with beautiful blue hair and all-white attire approaching to greet you upon arrival. 

“Welcome to Teyvat!” he said warmly. “I’m Ayato, the Commissioner of this town and the one who put up the advertisement. You must be the new…farmer?” 

Ayato faltered as he noticed your attire. You were in a corduroy overall dress with shiny, black Mary Janes and white socks with a lace trim around them. You didn’t have much experience in farming—you worked an office job all your life. What experience could you possibly have gathered? But based on the photos you saw online, you were certain you at least captured the look and style correctly.

The bows and frills were just a fun addition.

“Nice to meet you, Ayato,” you greeted easily, a bright smile on your face. “I’m Y/N, the new farmer.”

A hint of doubt flashed across his face but he covered it up with a disarming smile—one that melted away any concerns you might have had. “Teyvat is honored to have you. I am most pleased that you are here. Do you have much farming experience?”

“I own two houseplants! I’ve kept them alive for almost three months now.” 

He blinked, a smile still plastered across his mouth as you noticed the color draining from his cheeks. Ayato managed to choke out, “That is quite a remarkable feat.”

You laughed at his forced optimism, deciding to finally take him out of his misery. “I’m only kidding, Ayato. I’m aware owning houseplants does not equate to practicable farming experience.” 

Relief washed over him as he shared your amusement. “Oh, thank the gods! So, you do have experience taking care of farmland?”

“No.”

If grief was a person, you figured it would look exactly like Ayato did in this moment.

“But,” you continued cheekily, “I did enjoy growing some potatoes and herbs out on the balcony of my apartment. It’s not much, but I am determined to apply that minimal knowledge to this land of much grander scale. Plus, I have the Internet at my fingertips. I can search any questions I may have online!” 

You giggled to yourself when he nodded in agreement. It seemed he wholeheartedly believed your spiel. 

“Thought, if I may offer one small suggestion?” you said sheepishly.

Ayato raised his brow, but allowed you to continue.

“Perhaps you should request a resume or curriculum vitae of sorts before hiring someone.”

The dignified man in front of you broke out into laughter and, somehow, you found him to be even more attractive that way. 

“I suppose life is full of lessons,” he sighed, but there was teasing lift to his lips. “Truly, I believe you will do just fine as our new farmer. At the very least, I’m certain you will get along with the other residents here, if nothing else.” 

If they were anything like the Commissioner, you were certain he would be right.

“Now, follow me to your new home.”

“Gladly!”

“After, I shall take you around the town to help introduce you to everyone. I understand adjusting to a new life may take some time, but I am here to help in any way that I can.”

The look in his eyes were so intense and earnest, you found yourself fighting not to break his gaze and stare down at your feet. 

Clearing your throat, you fought away your bashfulness and said, “Lead the way, venerable Commissioner.”

Ayato shook his head at your teasing, the corner of his eyes crinkled with amusement. “The townsfolk will most certainly love you. I hope you enjoy your new life here in Teyvat, Y/N.”

You exchanged warm smiles with the Ayato, realizing that in just these few moments with him, you were already enjoying yourself more than you could have ever expected. 

“To new beginnings!” you cheered.

“New beginnings, and falling in love with life,” he added knowingly.

As you followed Ayato over to your new house—your new farm—you allowed yourself to close your eyes for just one moment. You heard the steady rush of the nearby waters and felt the wind toss your hair around. Breathing in deeply, you reveled in the scent of the woodsy, fresh air.

Teyvat was a new world, the polar opposite of the big city you once knew, and you were excited for the opportunity to experience life here at its fullest. 

[vidavalor]

The *Original* Original Sin Theory or... why Aziraphale's "I forgive you"s really mean "forgive me" and just why he wants Crowley's absolution...

Will this break your heart in a good way and make the end of S2 hurt less? more? both? idk let's find out...

I want to talk about what the Before the Beginning scene does to the Eden scene and what all that suggests about Aziraphale and Crowley's relationship... because it might be enough to upend what we think this relationship is quite a bit, at least from Aziraphale's POV, if it goes in the direction that I think they are hinting at in S3, which I'm basing off of where they took it in S2 in these scenes.

This also contains an analysis of That Scene from 2.06 that ties into lots of other scenes and some other meta related to the show and it's a bit long-- like, the mother of all metas-- but there are pretty gifs and I brought snacks? Just letting you know it's a long post but tuck in with some tea if you're in the mood and thanks for reading. :)

Under the big cutty thing...

Before we get started, a couple of quick warnings: I curse a bit in here. It's in the show itself but just letting you know it's here a bit, too. I also mention *very* briefly suicide ideation in the characters and also very briefly (one sentence) Satan's mind-control of Crowley in S1 in a way that might be sensitive for a sexual assault survivor. There is general mention of religious trauma and abusive relationships (not Crowley & Aziraphale's relationship) all over this. If you are okay with the show, you should be more than fine reading this but just wanted to let you know up front. If you're okay with that, read on...

So, the Before the Beginning scene contains a twist, in that we learn that pre-Fall Crowley is naive to Heaven while Aziraphale is the one who is wary of it. This is especially interesting because, best we can tell, no angel has Fallen yet. There aren't *explicit* consequences for asking questions yet, as Crowley doesn't think it could get him into trouble to do so... but *Aziraphale* does. Heaven in S1 and S2 is shown to be basically a fascist state full of bullies jockeying for power where the ones on top dole out all sorts of abuses to maintain a sense of order among the rank and file. We see the emotional and even physical abuse they dole out to Aziraphale and how little they tolerate any sort of dissent, even from an archangel, based on what they ultimately do when Gabriel doesn't want to do arma-bloody-geddon anymore. Heaven is basically The Kremlin. Toe out of line and they'll toss you off a high-rise while telling everyone how sad it is that you recently had a spell of depression and heart troubles as a way of scaring everyone else into submission, right? What's surprising to us is that Aziraphale knows this *absolutely* Before the Beginning and he's terrified on Crowley's behalf, since this place functions as a kind of mafia state.

This implies something really kind of dark which is that Aziraphale knows enough to know how to toe a party line and keep quiet about any doubts he has. He knows how to survive in a way that then-innocent Crowley did not. He tries to tell Crowley that questioning things is going to get him angel-killed but Crowley has a faith in God that's different than Aziraphale's was even before the Earth was fully created. Crowley believed in Her more than Aziraphale does. He doesn't think anything will happen to him. Aziraphale knows what will and this implies knowledge of the abuse of the system and it completely changes our perspective of Aziraphale throughout the rest of the series. We often think of him as either willfully naive or just desperately optimistic regarding Heaven's goodness but, in reality, he's neither of those things. He's something else, entirely. His actions are not expressing naivete or desperate optimism or anything else.

They are expressions of guilt.

And the Eden scene tells us why he has that guilt.

The Eden scene introduces us to Crowley and Aziraphale and the series itself and it has Crowley posit the central question of the show regarding the nature of angels and demons:

Objectively, when you watch this scene, you think this is about the tempting of Eve and the flaming sword. It is... but it's also not *just* about that. Because Crowley and Aziraphale are watching Adam & Eve venture off beyond the Garden of Eden in this scene. They're still within view so the flaming sword situation happened a matter of minutes earlier. Yet, when Crowley posits that central question of which one of them actually did the good thing and which did the bad thing, Aziraphale reveals that it wouldn't be funny at all if what Crowley is saying (that Aziraphale actually did the bad thing) is true. He's distressed about it and so Crowley, somewhat dryly, reassures him that he's an angel so he couldn't have done the wrong thing. (Crowley, of course, being a literal former angel punished for doing the wrong thing lol and that being the joke but also in there is also the layer of Crowley genuinely liking Aziraphale and trying to tell him that it's all okay and meaning it.) Aziraphale is relieved and this is the key bit here-- he says oh good "because it's been bothering me."

The tone of this is that this central question of whether or not he did wrong or right by Crowley and whether or not Crowley was wrong or right in his actions *has been bothering* Aziraphale and he phrases it in a way that implies he's been losing angelic sleep (so to speak) about it for a little while now. If this was *just about Adam and Eve* then Aziraphale's reaction here makes absolutely no sense because the camera also then cuts in their conversation to in front of Crowley and Aziraphale *to show us Adam and Eve still visible in the near-distance* fighting off the lion with the flaming sword. They literally *just left* so how could Aziraphale be all in knots for awhile now over whether or not he made the wrong call? He's not. You can argue that his decision here in Eden to help Adam and Eve by giving them his flaming sword-- by standing up and doing something in the face of God to help out other beings he secretly thinks might have been treated unfairly-- *is a direct response to what he failed to do back in Before the Beginning*...

... which was to stand up for Crowley.

Meaning: Aziraphale doesn't need to see Heaven's files to find out what happened to Crowley when Crowley fell because he was there. S3 is going to be about preventing the Second Coming and so plot allusions to the crucification (which had its own Crowley & Aziraphale scene in S1) will likely abound. Aziraphale was there when Lucifer and The Gang were tossed out of Heaven. To be fair to Aziraphale, there is basically nothing he could have done to prevent this and the best possible situation is that he didn't even have the chance to. The worst possible situation is that he's literally Judas and sold Crowley out, out of fear of being tossed out of Heaven himself. I tend to think it's more that he just didn't stand up and say anything in support of Crowley to prevent himself from being seen as on the side of the eventual demons. Still, just as Crowley thinks the punishment for Adam and Eve was harsh, Aziraphale thought that asking questions and being curious wasn't enough to send Lucifer and everyone around him to Hell to be damned for all of eternity but it caused an obvious existential crisis in him that he still struggles to totally resolve.

If he disagreed with the decision to cast out the suggestion box-happy angels, he was as "bad" as they were. If he agreed with the decision, he was condemning them and that didn't seem angelic, either. How to be a good angel, which is the only thing he had ever tried to be or knew how to be? He did what he thought must be right-- to follow what the other, more powerful angels said the word of God was-- and if it was Her will, then it must be what was right, even if it was *extremely difficult* to see how this lovebug here was really an evil, demonic creature of Hell...

Not to mention that Aziraphale was in love with WhateverHeWasCalledPre-Crawly!Crowley. (We will just call him "Crowley" for this whole meta, because that is the name he chose for himself.) And maybe Angel!Crowley went after the more glamorous, daring guys. Heaven honestly seems like both a fascist state and high school at once (is there really a difference? lol). Crowley describes how he wound up falling in S1 as that he "hung out with the wrong crowd" and Aziraphale in Before the Beginning honestly seems like he's been flying around watching Crowley make stars for ages, trying to work up the nerve to or find an opportunity to introduce himself to the beautiful hot cool arty science-y guy who barely looks at him when his other option for a view are nebulas... or Benedict Cumberbatch's Lucifer/Satan, whose "stroke of demonic genius, dahling" bit in S1 and dark assault on his fave Crowley while Crowley was driving had a real "Angel!Crowley went for the bad boy who were so bad pre-Fall that they wound up fucking Satan afterwards and friend-zoned angels like Aziraphale" vibes. Alternatively, maybe he didn't totally? Before the Beginning seems to be the first time they met and maybe after that, Crowley and Aziraphale became close. It's just that Crowley canonically also wound up sitting at the cool kids' table because they were the only ones questioning things and he wound up damned for eternity for it and Aziraphale?

Aziraphale blames himself for it.

He has blamed himself for Crowley's Fall for six thousand years.

When they speak in Eden, Aziraphale is being confronted for the first time with what has come of his nebula-joyous, freshly baked blueberry muffin of an angel. He calls himself "Crawly" now-- or that's the name he's been given-- because who he was is dead. His eyes are yellow. He's now a snake. He's maybe a bit sarcastic, a bit dry, and a lot more guarded and aloof but Aziraphale sees flickers of Angel!Crowley in there. He's *kind* to Aziraphale. He's still inquisitive, in spite of it being what damned him to Hell. Aziraphale, God help him, is still wildly into him and, ugh, maybe even *more* so, in spite of everything.

And 'everything', for Aziraphale, includes Crowley being a demon being Aziraphale's fault.

They don't talk about it. Ever.

They don't talk about it because Aziraphale thinks that Crowley doesn't remember. Crowley's memory loss of a lot of his time pre-Fall is canon in S2-- something we, the audience, will need to understand the whole picture when/if we end up getting this revelation in S3 of Crowley's Fall and that Aziraphale feels he's at least partially responsible. What's even harder for Aziraphale is that because Crowley doesn't remember his time as an angel, he doesn't remember their full history together. He doesn't remember how they met and protecting Aziraphale from the first celestial shower and all the times they chatted after that and if they were in love back then, Crowley doesn't remember it. Eden then becomes, to Crowley, the first time they meet... but then look at how while Aziraphale seems to think that Crowley doesn't know him while Aziraphale knows Crowley-- the moment that he pauses so Crowley can introduce himself-- *Crowley* seems a little bemused. Why?

Because what Aziraphale has failed to consider is that the one memory that the demons are allowed to keep, most likely, is their Fall, which means that if Aziraphale was there when Crowley fell, Crowley actually *does* remember him. At minimum, he remembers Aziraphale being there and looking stricken by what was happening so even if he can't remember more than that, he knows he's safe with Aziraphale and that Aziraphale cared about him, which would explain why he risked going to talk to with him on the wall in Eden. He knows they were friends and that Aziraphale is good and he can trust him. It's also theoretically possible that if Crowley remembers his Fall and if Aziraphale was there, it's a trigger to him being able to remember all of his and Aziraphale's time before Crowley fell. Aziraphale might not know this and because these two idiots do not know how to talk-- and especially don't talk about this-- Crowley hasn't told him. In part because Crowley can't go back and he doesn't want them to dwell on Angel!Crowley when Crowley is who he is and if that's a demon, it's a demon, and the whole system can go fuck itself anyway, as far as Crowley's concerned.

Aziraphale, though, is still back on "it's my fault". He thinks he literally took goodness from the world; that he participated in the murder of his friend and the love of his life. He has never. In six. thousand. years. lol. told Crowley that he feels like this because he still thinks that Crowley doesn't remember Aziraphale betraying him and he is terrified that if he told Crowley he did-- if he told him that he was responsible, in part, for his Fall-- that Crowley would hate him and Crowley is Aziraphale's only friend in the universe and Aziraphale is madly in love with him. He couldn't bear the loss of him. He can handle their occasional spats and disagreements, knowing that Crowley always comes back, but this? If Crowley knew that his Fall was Aziraphale's fault? Aziraphale thinks Crowley wouldn't come back from that and he'd never see him again.

In reality? Crowley either already knows this and has the whole time or suspects it or if he found it out, would forgive Aziraphale for it. If he knows, he already has. His counter-argument is, like, what were you supposed to do to save me, exactly, angel? You alone versus all the hierarchy of Heaven and God Herself? I'm *glad* you didn't do something stupid and get yourself tossed into a pit of boiling sulphur. You don't deserve that.

Thing is, though, because they've never had this conversation because they DO NOT TALK lol, Aziraphale thinks he *does* deserve that. But look at what's happened since he made the decision not to save Crowley from falling...

...nothing.

Nothing has happened to Aziraphale. He didn't fall for it himself. He didn't fall for betraying the angel he loved and he wonders every. single. day. why he didn't and the only thing he can come up with is that he must have done the right thing. *It must be* that Crowley did the bad thing and Aziraphale did the good one because Crowley was damned to Hell for all of eternity and Aziraphale is still an angel of Heaven, six thousand years later. It's not for Aziraphale to question God. Her will is ineffable. It's ineffable because he cannot begin to understand how any of this can possibly be just and that just keeps happening over and over and over and over throughout the years to come in every situation he and Crowley find themselves in, from Job to The Flood to Wee Morag and Elspeth to Arma-bloody-geddon, right?

Aziraphale begins to lose count of how many times he's gone up against God at this point. Gives away his flaming sword to Adam and Eve. Saves as many as he could during The Flood-- *with* Crowley. (You know they did.) Lies to Gabriel's face in the eyes of God to save Job and Sitis' children... and learning that Falling was political, really, in the process. Nothing happened to Aziraphale for Job's kids. He suffered no consequence for lying to Heaven and God because Crowley was willing to lie for him-- to protect him from Falling, where Aziraphale couldn't protect Crowley himself ages before-- and nothing happened. Falling, suddenly, didn't seem totally God-ordained it it could be tossed aside by something as simple as having a demon just choose not to toss you to Satan. Crowley didn't take him to Hell because he didn't feel like Aziraphale belonged there. It wound up all entirely within Crowley's control, which then made Aziraphale begin to question if God was even really behind the Fall of Lucifer and the Gang or if it wasn't just the thugs in charge of Heaven who decided to toss them out... thoughts he was terrified to think and didn't dare voice aloud, at least not then.

In another era, Aziraphale and Crowley stood there together to witness the torture and murder of Jesus Christ in the name of God, in a parallel to the Fall. What happened to Jesus? He was betrayed by his closest friend, then tortured and murdered by those in the government who thought he posed a threat to social order. Heaven as Pontius Pilate. Aziraphale as a kind of Judas, in Aziraphale's mind, anyway.

Jesus as Crowley.

Time goes on and he and The Demon Crowley form friendship in their own right, regardless of what Crowley might remember from before his Fall. They form their Arrangement off of that and Aziraphale learns even more that, often, no one is really paying attention to what they do. That no one seems to notice if Crowley performs an angelic miracle or if Aziraphale performs what has become termed a 'demonic miracle'... because, really, *they're the same*, though that's not something Aziraphale can fully admit. He cannot allow himself to believe that demons *are angels* because if there's nothing different between demons and angels than Aziraphale doesn't know anything at all.

Anything at all... He doesn't know what being an angel *is* and it's what he supposedly is so it means he doesn't know who or what he is, really.

He doesn't know what God wants or if he truly believes in Her.

He doesn't know what the purpose of all of this is-- why Crowley had to suffer, why demons in general have to, why the *humans* do. Why it all has to be destroyed eventually. To what end?

Aziraphale has the same questions Crowley does and sometimes, late at night, often a little drunk, he'll dare to ask them with Crowley, and every morning that he still wakes up and sobers up and finds himself still an angel when Crowley Fell for so much less than Aziraphale has ever thought or done, he wonders just *why?*

Why is he still an angel when he, really, is no different from Crowley? Why Crowley is damned? Punished for all of eternity for curiosity and innovation and imagination, while Aziraphale is still an angel, doomed to only have until the clock runs out on Armageddon before losing him for the rest of fucking *eternity* but, until then, stuck suffering watching him suffer while remaining an angel? Is being an angel at this point, really, his punishment for failing the apparently foul fiend he adores?

Does Aziraphale ever have any answers to these questions? Good God, no lol. He's six thousand years into this and he's in the same spot as Amnesiac!ArchangelFuckingGabriel in 2.01:

...would be okay if you could just be one near particular person?

Of course Aziraphale knows what this feels like. Of course. We know he does. And that's why he hasn't been able to make a real move in six thousand years-- because it's his fault, as far as he's concerned.

Crowley's damnation is his fault. Crowley cannot really love him, or couldn't if he knew. Not because he's a demon, though Aziraphale might have thought that at one point but he definitely was cured of it by events in 1941. The more time that goes by, the more Aziraphale knows that Crowley loves him-- that he's *in* love with him-- and the worse it all gets for Aziraphale because every day that he hasn't told Crowley that he didn't prevent him from Falling is another day within the last *six thousand years* of them falling in love and the betrayal seems to get worse and worse to Aziraphale. The time to have this conversation was on the wall in Eden and it still hasn't happened. Still, over time, he starts to realize that Crowley, if ever knew, would forgive him.

Because his Crowley has the kindest of hearts. He really does, and that wasn't taken from him when he Fell and Aziraphale finds every opportunity he can to delight in seeing that and making Crowley reveal it.

It goes against everything Aziraphale is supposed to believe.

Demons are not supposed to be good-- if they were, they wouldn't have Fallen. Yet, Aziraphale knows Crowley is. He never has truly believed that Crowley isn't-- even when he could have, at least at the start. He worried, maybe, that he had helped create a monster out of the most lovely being he'd ever known but Crowley just kept proving him wrong about that, time and time again. *Crowley* doesn't believe it about himself, really, because that's his own trauma from his Fall but Aziraphale believes it about him and that's often good enough for Crowley.

But, really, this is why they still haven't gotten together in six thousand years. This is why Aziraphale seems like he can never get beyond "I'm an angel and you're a demon", no matter what Crowley does or how he proves that there are shades of gray and also, that the entire system is bullshit. It is not that Aziraphale doesn't *know* that it's bullshit-- it's that if he admits that it is, if he stops believing in Heaven (even if he doesn't stop believing in God), then he's left with nothing but the crushing weight of guilt that he has for all the pain that Crowley has been through.

If he tells himself that Crowley Fell *for a reason* and that he (Aziraphale) was *right* to not interfere, to not try to thwart God, even if it would have likely failed, just on principle, to stand up for his friend... then Aziraphale doesn't have to deal with the fact that he made what he really considers to be a colossal mistake and that it has caused the continued pain and torture and eternal damnation of the being he considers his soulmate...

...which is why everytime that pain comes to the surface in something Crowley says or does, Aziraphale *cannot handle it at all whatsoever* and reverts to You'reADemonI'mAnAngel!Mode.

Example: Crowley's religious trauma on display in their bandstand argument:

Crowley owns this, even if he's still traumatized by it. He's saying it sarcastically, making a joke on a song Aziraphale probably barely knows, if he knows at all ("Unforgettable"-- Nat King Cole). Aziraphale *aches* at Crowley saying this-- because it reminds him that it's partially his own fault. And he can't. Do. Anything. About. It.

He's an all-powerful *angel* here but he can't change this for Crowley. He can't stop his suffering some six thousand years after his Fall. He's looking at sexy goth Crowley here and he's thinking about curly-haired, beaming, ball of light! Crowley and that they are *the same person* and Aziraphale *does* know that. He knows it and he loves him passionately and desperately and he is one of the most powerful beings ever in existence and he's standing there looking at the man-shaped-being he adores talking about how he still aches from the betrayal of his fellow angels and his mother God and *there is no way for Aziraphale to fix it* when he can mend broken bones and heal the sick and let their be light! all over the place. He can do proper magic and still, he cannot take away Crowley's pain.

This is Aziraphale's Hell. He didn't Fall but he's been in Hell anyway.

So when Crowley's religious trauma and pain comes out, usually in an argument like in the bandstand scene, Aziraphale does the only thing he thinks he *can* do, right? He's an angel. Still. Somehow. He's an angel and there must be some reason for that and an angel is not a demon-- an angel is a purer being, a healer-- and so he says "I forgive you". He doesn't mean it to be patronizing, even if it is. ("I am a *great deal* holier than thou," as he told Crowley at one point and that was the point, right?) He is trying to say "I am still of Heaven and if it's absolution you need, I can give it to you."

He is trying to say: You are not unforgivable to me.

The real lyric of the song Crowley parodies in the bandstand is what Aziraphale means, whether he knows that song or not...

Unforgettable/That's what you are...

*Crowley*, though, doesn't know about Aziraphale's inner turmoil because *heavy sigh* FFS TALK, YOU IDIOTS *breathes* lol, so *he* hears:

I still think I am better than you and you are Fallen, so you're not worthy of me. I can't love you, not the way you want. I love all beings because I'm an angel and I you know I'm in love with you but I can't *allow* myself to be because it goes against the nature of an angel and I've only done eleven thousand things that should have made me Fall over the years but letting myself be in love with you is the rubicon I won't cross, apparently...

Crowley knows by the time they're having the bandstand argument enough about Aziraphale's general religious trauma (not necessarily about how it pertains to Crowley's Fall but about it in general) to know that he spits out hateful garbage when he feels cornered and how to just call it bullshit and move on. ("I don't even like you."/"You doooo.") But he understandably walks away when Aziraphale pushes him away past a point he can handle-- and Aziraphale knows how to do that. He does it *intentionally.* The "I forgive you" is sadness because it's all he has to offer Crowley but he also knows it'll piss Crowley off enough to end the argument, so he says it intentionally to get Crowley to go away. In this scene (which parallels the end of S2 quite a bit, as many have noticed), Aziraphale is trying to deal with it all on his own, right?

He knows where the antichrist is. He's just not telling Crowley yet. He's trying to deal with it to keep him safe. He's doing it because he thinks he should-- that maybe, when it's something of this level of importance, that his job should be as an angel first, above his side with Crowley. (It's also worth mentioning here that Aziraphale is straight up terrified of Falling, not even just for being damned to Hell but because then, if he's no longer in Heaven, he has exactly zero power to even *try* to protect Crowley.) At the end of S2? With The Metatron?

Aziraphale does the same thing as with the antichrist for a time in S1, really.

The beginning of S2 shows us that Aziraphale has known that Heaven is North Korea since Before the Beginning so now marry that with its last scenes and see the arc that connects them-- Aziraphale does what he does out of guilt over what happened to Crowley to *protect* Crowley. He didn't want to do any of it without Crowley and when The Metatron finally offers that carrot, Aziraphale is suspicious as all hell (pardon the pun) and here we have this moment where part of him *wants* this to all be real, right?

Times change and sometimes, your parents who traumatized the living fuck out of you and didn't approve of your boyfriend, grow the hell up a bit and try to repent and mend fences. Maybe the trust is broken but maybe it can be healed and *as an angel*, Aziraphale is a being of goodness and hope and optimism. He's pure of heart, as Crowley put it to Nina. He *wants* that to be the case... but he also knows it likely is not.

Still... they can't run. There's nowhere that Heaven won't find them. It's no life for them-- no life for Crowley, in Aziraphale's mind, no matter how many times Crowley tries to get him to run away with him. "We can go off together!" begs Crowley, over and over, and Aziraphale's only really ever found that Crowley will only slither off if he's ticked off enough and only "I forgive you" ever really does that enough to work lol. He *means* I love you endlessly but you know this is impossible, you bloody maddening, gorgeous serpent! Will you stop reminding me of what we could have when it can never happen?! but that's not exactly how Crowley's taking it.

In the end, to Aziraphale, Aziraphale is an angel and Crowley is a demon and they are doomed to spend eternity apart and Aziraphale thinks he has no one to blame, really, but himself. If he had somehow saved Crowley six thousand years ago-- or had somehow been brave enough to stand up for him and Fallen alongside him-- they could have been together forever.

But he wasn't then and now The Metatron is here and it's time for Aziraphale to go back to Heaven and he knows, as he sits there drinking coffee with the being whose posse sent Crowley in a free fall into a pit of boiling sulphur, that Crowley will never, ever, ever, EVER go back to Heaven.

But he also knows that Heaven is here to collect Aziraphale and they are making it clear that there is no escape. There's nowhere to run. Everyday, it's been getting closer for six thousand years and going faster than a roller coaster for the last handful but a love like Beez and Gabe's will surely never come his and Crowley's way now.

It was always going to end like this. Nothing lasts forever. He told Crowley that, Before the Beginning. Six thousand years. That was all the time they had before the end of Earth, the place they'd come to call home. They found a way to borrow a few more years at the end of it since S1 and he got to dance with Crowley, their fingers brushing, and that is going to have to be enough because they're out of time.

The Metatron never needed say it directly but it was evident: they wanted Aziraphale to go to Heaven and they would say or do anything to get him up there and Aziraphale may have bought it for a moment but he's definitely figured out by the end of S2 that they need him up there not to become the Supreme Archangel but because his time as an angel is now over. The threat to Crowley is unspoken but omnipresent.

The Metatron makes it sound like he doesn't care if Crowley comes back up to Heaven with Aziraphale or not and he really doesn't and why would that be? Why would he be eager to have the two most troublesome beings in all of Heaven and Hell teaming up and getting in the way of his Second Coming plans, which he absolutely *knows* they won't support? Because they won't have jobs waiting for them up there. Crowley will not be restored to full angelic status.

They're going to kill them. Aziraphale knows it. He's known what Heaven is since Before the Beginning, even if he's been in denial about it for almost as long to try to assuage his own guilt over participating in it.

And it's a lot easier a goal for Heaven to accomplish if they separate them and just Aziraphale goes up to Heaven. If Aziraphale goes alone-- if he keeps Crowley from following-- then Crowley is not a threat to them if Aziraphale is gone.

They aren't as powerful apart.

Aziraphale knows that if Crowley comes to Heaven with him that they will kill him and Aziraphale thinks okay, this is it... this is my moment of redemption.

Six thousand years since Crowley Fell and I can finally make up for not saving him by saving him now.

I can go with The Metatron and let Heaven kill me and know that they will not threaten Crowley if they do because what they are threatened by is both of us together. One of us, alone, is less of a threat and the only problem here is that if I go... Crowley will follow me.

If I just go without telling him what The Metatron said and I don't come back right away, he'll go to Heaven, worried that something happened to me, and they'll kill him when he comes looking for me. He'll find out they've Book of Life'd me and do something stupid and my sacrifice to keep him safe will all be for nothing.

So what's our tortured angel to do?

Bandstand 2.0, right?

He's got to piss Crowley off enough that Crowley won't follow him.

He's got to piss Crowley off so much that Crowley *will never come back* and the worst part is that Aziraphale knows *exactly* how to do it.

He makes his own plans and if things get drastic enough, he'll blow up that damn halo, metaphorically-speaking this time. To save Crowley, he will break Crowley.

It's darkly romantic, really. He'll sacrifice himself for Crowley but to be sure that Crowley will be safe and not follow, he'll have to break his heart a bit first-- to further their misunderstandings in a season based on "I don't think your exactly is my exactly exactly"-level miscommunications.

So Aziraphale accepts The Metatron's offer and lets The Metatron think he completely believes that the offer is legit and maybe a part of him is still hoping that it is but he knows it's really not and that this is a suicide run. This is Aziraphale's Holy Water arc...

...and speaking of Holy Water... that arc from the perspective of this being Aziraphale's mentality... Crowley, tortured by Hell for what he did while with Aziraphale in 1827, then refusing to talk about it, showing up with a cane, sullen and depressed, asking Aziraphale for the one thing that would kill him and Aziraphale's unwillingness to understand that it wasn't completely suicide ideation on Crowley's part but as a way to *protect Aziraphale* and keep him safe. Crowley wanted what could kill a demon not to kill himself but to kill one that might come after Aziraphale. All Aziraphale could see, though, was Crowley's physical and emotional pain, that he could barely keep hidden in that era, and how Aziraphale couldn't make it better. All he could see was how he failed him and led him to this suffering. All he could see in a note begging for "holy water" was Crowley wanting a suicide pill, wanting to destroy himself, unable to take any more, in so much pain that he'd leave Aziraphale forever to make it stop. Aziraphale is blinded entirely by guilt and fails to see what Crowley is really saying, which was, ironically, the last time Crowley began to try to tell Aziraphale how he felt, which was:

I've been thinking-- what if it all goes wrong? (What if I lose you? I'm terrified of losing you. I love you. I wake up from nightmares of you being destroyed by the demons who just spent a couple of decades after 1827 not that long ago torturing me. I didn't know for sure if you were still alive during any of it.) We have a lot in common, you and me. (We're a team. A... group of the two of us.) What if it all goes pear-shaped? I need you to get me the magical demon-killing stuff so I have a weapon against *my own fellow fallen angels* that I can use in case they come after us. I would kill another demon and send every legion of Hell after me to protect you.

Aziraphale: I like pears.

(My God, they are so stupid. Please. I can't take any more lol.)

So, yeah... it's Aziraphale's turn for the holy water suicide run here only with an actual suicide run...

It takes the books in The Blitz for Aziraphale to really understand what Crowley was asking for and what he meant by asking for holy water and by 1967, he gives Crowley the holy water, in the one moment when *they actually talk*, as much as they can, about how much they love one another, that exists prior to the end of its parallel-- the end of S2.

So, yeah, Aziraphale "goes to tell his friend the good news" with a look on his face like he's marching to his death *because he is* and he knows it. His last moments with Crowley, in some of his last moments in existence, he already knows will be spent upsetting the man-shaped being he loves. He's got it all planned out. Not exactly the picnic of his dreams but it'll redeem him and save Crowley and that's all that matters to Aziraphale in this moment.

He will sound naive to the threat of Heaven and because Crowley doesn't remember pre-Fall, he won't remember how Aziraphale warned him against taking on the brass in Heaven so Crowley won't be suspicious, he'll be *frustrated*, like he was in the bandstand. He'll get angry. Aziraphale's goal is to get him to storm out-- but it has to be a really, really, bad relationship-ending storming out.

He can't come back after he drives The Bentley around the block like he did back in 2.01 and say "okay, fine, I'll help you" and Aziraphale knows that if he plays this right, he can make it so Crowley won't because helping Gabriel was one thing but asking Crowley to become an angel with him and pretending like they can go fix the broken system of Heaven is going to be Crowley's bridge too far. It's *the only thing* that Aziraphale believes is Crowley's bridge too far where Aziraphale is concerned and isn't that heartbreaking as hell? That Crowley loves him this much? And they never got to be together the way they wanted? That they were just beginning to get close to trying to figure that out?

That, hours ago, Aziraphale was asking him to dance and trying to ignore the signs of trouble around the corner, desperately wanting more time with him? That they are semi-immortal beings that always somehow seem to be out of time?

Truer words have never been spoken, Crowley. Little did you know, poor demon...

So Aziraphale goes into the bookshop and Crowley looks all worked up and wants to say something and some part of Aziraphale begins to hear warning alarms going off in his head because Crowley *never* looks like this-- is never this flustered, never this uncomfortable, never this nervous, never in a rush to say something-- and Aziraphale thinks no, can't be, we don't talk about this... even if, ironically, all of S2 shows that Aziraphale has been trying *for just that*. It was just a few hours ago that he was trying to Jane Austen a ball for them to use as a pretense to discuss their feelings because, in the height of ironies here, right?

Aziraphale was ready.

They'd had some time without Heaven and Hell breathing so much down their necks, even if the threat still loomed, and spent every day together and it was perfect and it was lovely and he knew Crowley would forgive him and Aziraphale was almost there, right, he was *almost* ready to tell him. He was almost ready to tell him he loved him and that it was him, all those millennia ago, who could have done something and didn't and he's so, so, so sorry and can Crowley ever forgive him? Is there any way that Crowley could ever forgive him after what he didn't say and didn't do when he should have? For all the times since that he's said things in anger when, really, he was madly in love and just full of his own issues to sort out? (Damn, Aziraphale, we're beginning to see your affinity for Austen heroes here...)

But he's out of time so there will be none of that now. Now is his karmic payback. Six thousand beautiful years with the being he loves and feels he doesn't deserve have led to Aziraphale's redemption being that he can sacrifice himself to save him. He can leave the world they love with Crowley and Crowley's *goodness* in it, as it should be. So when Crowley says he needs to say something, Aziraphale cannot-- CANNOT-- let him speak because he cannot bear it.

He suddenly fears that of course-- OF COURSE-- the one moment in all of these trillions of moments they've lived through where Crowley is about to directly say he loves him for the first time is the also the same fucking moment when Aziraphale has to destroy their relationship to save Crowley's life and Aziraphale will be dead after this and he cannot bear hearing what his life could have been. He can't hear Crowley say this right now or else he worries he might lose his nerve. He *wants* to hear it but if Crowley speaks first, Aziraphale might cave, he might be weak again like he was when Crowley Fell, he might fail him again, and he can't. Not after all this time. Not when he loves Crowley so much.

"What's that lovely human expression?! 'Hold that thought!'" he blurts out, in a callback to, of course, the moment Crowley saved him in 1941-- to that night where Aziraphale really realized for the first time that Crowley wasn't just capable of good or capable of being friendly towards him but that Crowley *loved* him and that he loved the Demon Crowley, whether or not he should. ("But somewhere in my wicked, miserable past," sings Frances McDormand as the Voice of God, from her apparent favorite film lol, "I must have done something good.")

Ah, yes. Played for suckers. Here is where it's important to note that in 1941, Aziraphale had no idea that Rose was really Greta and that he, in fact, was the one being played for a sucker. By the end of S2, though, it could be argued that he very much knows that The Metatron is Fraulein Greta Klauschmidt-- someone who presented herself as Captain Rose Montgomery, an agent of anti-fascist good, who approached Aziraphale in his bookshop and told him that he could be an agent of change, too. He could help save the world and stop the global rising tide of fascism represented by the Third Reich. He could even do so using his books. They plotted a sting together, in which he'd bring his books to a church and seem to give them to Nazis to give to the Fuhrer, only for agents to surround them and arrest the Nazis. Aziraphale, desperate to *do* good and to *be* good, falls for this-- he fails to see that Rose is really Greta, a Nazi agent who fools him into working for the enemy and getting him to help destroy the world in the process. Pretty obvious to see here that Greta is The Metatron in S2... but it's likely that Aziraphale knows it and is playing along because it's his turn to save Crowley, unlike what happened in 1941, when Crowley saves him and his books.

Crowley, in the bookshop back at the end of S2 in our present time, stops speaking at the "hold that thought", looking like he's about to be ill, and has to also be thinking of 1941 and the church now that Aziraphale has referenced it. Maybe, in some way, it's an unconscious effort on Aziraphale's part to convey to Crowley that this is a charade-- that he doesn't mean this, that it's an act-- but he really doesn't want Crowley to figure that out. It would defeat his goal. But he also doesn't want to hurt him because he loves him but this is the only way that Aziraphale can see to save him. So he starts gushing about his coffee with The Metatron, right? We all remember this pain lol.

Maybe I've misjudged him. (Aziraphale, we suspect you know that he tossed Crowley into hellfire and stole Gabriel's memories so honestly, the worst part of all of this is that you're so traumatized that Crowley is *buying* what you're saying here...) And guess what?! He wants me to be the new Supreme Archangel! And he said you can come! And you can be an angel again! It will be so fun! We can have a slumber party, Crowley, after days of doing good, and braid each other's hair!

Crowley is like jfc fml are you even serious right now? Which, of course, is what Aziraphale *was going for.* It's the "I don't even like you" and the "we're hereditary enemies" and the "I'm an angel, you're a demon" way of trying to intentionally push Crowley away but the new version of it because none of that flies with S2 Crowley-- most of it barely flew with him in S1-- because Crowley *knows.*

He knows that Aziraphale loves him. And he knows that Aziraphale knows him, which is to say he knows how to hurt him, and that's what this is but also Crowley just sees it as how much Heaven has hurt them both. How much they've hurt Aziraphale. Because just as Aziraphale looks at Crowley in the throes of his religious trauma-- "Unforgivable. It's what I am", etc.-- and wants to help and save and protect him, Crowley feels the same way in return when Aziraphale is like this. Frustrated, sure, but in just as much pain at how much pain Aziraphale is in and feels powerless to stop it but will do whatever he can to try to, yeah?

For Aziraphale, this is all going fairly well (it's miserable but in terms of goal, it's working) through "tell me you said no" but the problem is that Crowley is still pleading. He's still trying to work through it because they're an *us* now and also ironically of course this is when Crowley's been trying to do better with storming out lol so he's trying to couple-solve this. He's not just *leaving* like how Aziraphale had hoped. He had been trying to sell to Crowley that he could pick Heaven over Crowley and Crowley is just kinda... not believing it so much at first and, instead, is trying to approach it like a problem for the two of them to solve together, instead of as a decision that Aziraphale has made for his life that he's stating that Crowley can take or leave.

Which calls back to this scene in 2.01 at the start of this arc, when Crowley calls their life *his* life and Aziraphale counters with that he thought *they* had carved out a life for themselves *together* and Crowley answers: "so did I!" Because they haven't had a discussion about what they are, exactly, at that point, Crowley still cautiously calls *their* life *his* life, retaining a sense of autonomy, as if he's only making decisions for himself when, in reality, they are a couple who are trying to make a life together and have been doing so consciously since S1. Crowley calls that life "precious" and "peaceful" to Aziraphale-- beautiful, lovely things that they both treasure and want and find with one another-- but also "fragile". The threats to them still loom large in the background and they are still so afraid to go much further in their relationship because, in part, of those threats and how terrified they are of losing one another... which just makes the end of S2 even more brutal, really.

(*mantras* cottage in the south downs cottage in the south downs...)

So back in That Scene later in S2, Aziraphale is then just kind of stuck trying to figure out how to get Crowley to be so angry with him that he storms out and never comes back in the face of Crowley trying to very much not do that and then Crowley starts saying that he needs to say what he was going to say or he never will and Aziraphale *knows*, ok? He knows what Crowley needs to say. He just literally cannot believe this is going to happen right now. He honestly can't believe it's happening at all but right now?!

He knows before Crowley begins speaking. He probably knew when he told him to "hold that thought" a few moments before but he *really* knows now. Crowley has no idea that Aziraphale has planned for this to be the last time they ever see one another and to go sacrifice himself to Heaven for whatever they want to do with him to keep them away from Crowley. Crowley looks like he's about to pass out from nerves and can barely speak and just...

...six. thousand. years...

...I know we have all looked at the heartbreak of this scene from Crowley's POV here every which way to Sunday, okay, but just imagine you are Aziraphale, who has loved this being since before the literal beginning of time, and you blame yourself for his pain and suffering, and he's standing here, braver than you've ever been with him, looking into your eyes and telling you that he knows that you love him and that he loves you and he knows you both have known this for basically the entirety of your existence together and he can't pretend anymore. He doesn't want to pretend anymore. He knows things have changed over the last few years between you and he wants more of that. He wants to be with you.

The two of you are not even human, just human-adjacent beings who have gone native from the stars and clouds here, who live and love like humans, who know that maybe the angels and demons have it backwards and God's great creatures are the humans-- that it should be the good in them that you should be trying to emulate-- and Crowley had never been more beautifully, impossibly human than while he's standing there looking ready to pass out while asking you if, after six millennia, it might be alright for him to not hide how much he loves you.

How many times has Aziraphale imagined this by this point? A million? How many different ways? There's at least half of them when he imagines that he's the one who gets up the courage first but there are so. many. Crowley. fantasies. Ones in every time period. But always *a fantasy*, at least up until maybe very recently. Why?

Not even just Heaven and Hell and the threat of being caught but the fact that Aziraphale believes that Crowley doesn't know Aziraphale didn't save him during The Fall and how could he ever really love him if he knew? How could Aziraphale ever go to him like this and give Crowley everything he knows Crowley has desired for so long without telling him the truth about Aziraphale's role in Crowley's Fall-- but then, Aziraphale assumes, he'd lose Crowley forever? So this has always been a pipe dream for Aziraphale-- fantasies from a world where they ever stood a chance of being together-- never really something that could be reality and here it is, starting, happening *now*...

...after six. thousand. years. of living with this guilt and in the last moments in which he will ever see Crowley before he heads to his likely death, with no time to tell him the truth and beg for his forgiveness, no time to ever know what their lives might be like if they could be together.

As Crowley, unbeknownst to Aziraphale, mused dramatically, if not inaccurately, earlier in the season... it's always too late.

It's punishment, in Aziraphale's mind. That's what Crowley's proposal, his confession, is now. It's his Fall, whether he falls or not when he leaves the bookshop for Heaven. It's karmic retribution-- it's God, finally saying something, and what she's saying is:

Look at what you've done, Aziraphale...

Look at how he loves you.

He was never unforgivable.

You are.

Aziraphale might be erased from existence once he gets to Heaven and he knows that's a possibility but he basically is dying here. Crowley is killing him. Crowley has pointed that silver bullet gun straight at his head and fired but he's missed and the bullet isn't in Aziraphale's teeth, it's gone through him.

Crowley, here, tears in his eyes, asking for whatever time they have. An eternity? Impossible, unlikely. Angel and demon. One day, the war will begin again-- another war to end all wars, like all the ones they've fell more and more in love during throughout history-- but it might be the one where Heaven or Hell wins and they're doomed to spend eternity apart. Crowley has said before he thinks the real war is humanity versus Heaven and Hell and that sounds like he thinks there's a chance they could survive it but who knows? They don't know. They're immortal beings who live like humans and that's, of late, included a sense of mortality. They don't know how much time they have left and Crowley is asking for all of it. He is asking for whatever time they have left to be spent together, openly loving one another, and what he doesn't know is what Aziraphale knows:

That they're already out of time.

Crowley is proposing marriage unaware that Aziraphale is dying. It's always too late, Crowley had stated earlier but had hope that maybe it wasn't but it is. And Aziraphale?

Gah. Aziraphale...

He's never loved him more. He's never wanted him more. He wants to tell him that he wants that, too, that they can have it, that Crowley can have anything he wants, but it's not true. It's not true because they could run out the back door of the bookshop now and hop in the Bentley and end-of-Grease it up to Alpha Centauri and Heaven will still find them. Heaven and Hell will still be after them. Running away solves nothing and Crowley always, ultimately, anyway, comes back and this time-- this time-- for Crowley's own good, to save his life, Aziraphale needs him to leave the bookshop and never come back.

And the moment that Crowley confesses that he loves him and that he knows Aziraphale loves him in return and that they've both known this, forever, and asks him if he can be allowed to just love him, Aziraphale loves him so much in return that he'll break his heart to save him from dying.

Dying is... not on, as High!Crowley put it in 1827 lol, but suicide-ish attempts are, if it's Aziraphale's turn this time.

So he twists the knife. He hides the goats as pigeons and he looks at Crowley and does a bit of this:

...only with the exact opposite intent. In the Job minisode, Crowley cannot speak aloud his true intentions. (Something he can finally do in the S2 finale, when he declares his love for Aziraphale.) He cannot tell Aziraphale outrightly that he had zero desire whatosever to kill Job's kids and animals and doesn't plan on actually doing it and, in fact, is actively engaged in a bit of bait-and-switch to make it look like he's doing what he's supposed to be doing as mandated by Heaven! this time as well as Hell (a nice little extra bit of paralleling to the end of S2 and Aziraphale, there.) He wants Aziraphale to believe him enough to allow him to pull it off because saving the kids and the pets (and protecting Aziraphale from any harm that might come to him if he gets in the way of what Crowley's been asked to do) matters more to Crowley than Aziraphale believing him...

...and believing him here means believing *in* him. Believing that they are on the same side and it's their own side and they're in it together. Crowley has to lie to him here *and it works for a moment*. It's really important to note that *it works*. Aziraphale believes that Crowley can do this and that he wants to-- that he not only can but he *longs* (lol) to "kill the blameless kids of Job"-- but it's all in Crowley's wording. He isn't *actually* lying. He *does* long to kill the blameless kids of Job like how he killed the blameless goats of Job-- because he "killed the blameless goats of Job" by turning them into pigeons. So he's really saying to Aziraphale that he longs to *fake the deaths* of the blameless kids of Job and plans to in the same way that he did the goats. In that moment, though? It didn't matter if Crowley was lying or telling the truth. There was only one goal--

--to get Aziraphale to walk away.

To get Aziraphale to leave, for his own safety, and let Crowley handle this. Better that he misunderstand Crowley and be disappointed in him and think him a lost cause than to get himself into trouble. Crowley out here loving Aziraphale that much in the days of Bildad the Shuite. (This poor mfer. Six. Thousand. Years lol.)

So what caused Crowley's plan to save Aziraphale in the Job era to not work?

One of the pigeons bleated, right?

Aziraphale heard it and realized that Crowley hadn't been lying so much as he had been trying to protect Aziraphale from his plan of subterfuge against the Almighty and Satan. The difference is that there are no bleating pigeons in the S2 finale... there's just *a whole certain famous other kind of damn bird instead* and its *absence* from the scene is the big emotional gut punch moment. And we all know it but I'll gif it anyway since this is already a depressing meta (cottage in the south downs cottage in the south downs...)...

...and that *is* the point. Because unlike back in the Bildad the Shuite days, there is no bleating pigeon (at least, not yet) to make Crowley realize that all is not what it seems and that Aziraphale is trying to lie to him and get him to leave to protect him from Heaven.

As Aziraphale is like mortally wounded here by Crowley's confession of love and is so not going to recover from this, he's now got to not only get Crowley to leave feeling like Aziraphale rejected being their own team for Heaven, he has to now do it with all of it out in the open-- with Crowley having openly confessed love for him, with him having asked for them to be together. He's not just going to have to frustrate Crowley more than he ever has before and get him to leave more angry than he was before, he has to, instead, smash into little tiny bits the very beautiful, very passionate, beating heart of the being he has loved since he met him *making the stars* in the bloody sky here...

The only way to get Crowley to go now is to make Crowley think he's rejecting the idea of loving him. Aziraphale honestly can't even sell the idea that he *doesn't* love Crowley because Crowley won't believe it-- he knows Aziraphale does and he's said as much in his whole marriage proposal here. So it has to be that Crowley thinks Aziraphale chose Heaven over loving him. Chose being an angel. That he really meant all of those 'hereditary enemies' and 'you're a demon' moments and to sell that, he sells it.

(You're a dark horse, Mr. Fell, Nina said of him in 2.01... the same turn of phrase Crowley uses when surprised by the secret skills and narrative power of Jane Austen later on in the pub.)

Aziraphale does love himself a bit of theatre. A bit of a disappearing act. The West End, The West End...

...our Nefertiti-fooling fellow...

He sells it with:

Well, of course you said no, *you're* the bad guys...

Come with me... I'll run, it you can be *my second-in-command*...

We can be together. *Angels*. Doing *good*...

...oh, Crowley... nothing lasts forever...

For his final act, The Marvelous Mr. Fell will saw his ineffable husband's heart in half by spewing a litany of everything he can think of to say that will piss him off enough to make him leave the bookshop broken-hearted enough to never come back.

Only someone put a miracle blocker on here because, try as he might and good heavens (pardon the pun), Aziraphale is *trying* here...

...this turnip is not turning into a damn inkwell.

Crowley finally starts to go-- it's looking promising. Finally, Aziraphale thinks, this misery might end. Six thousand years of wanting to speak of all of this between them and hoping for some happiness when-- if-- it could maybe someday arrive, if it even could-- and it's the worst moment of Aziraphale's existence and he knows it is the same for Crowley.

Crowley stops and the "do you hear that?" And no, Aziraphale doesn't hear anything, he just has never been more upset and Crowley needs to just go because Aziraphale can't handle another moment of this, how could it possibly get worse?

Nightingales. Of course.

A call back to S1's "no more world-class composers/little restaurants where they know you/gravalax and dill sauce/old bookshops" but this time, it's "no nightingales". There's Armageddon coming that neither of them know about in this moment. It's still a 'someday, they'll try again' concept to them in this scene, not an extremely immediate threat, as Aziraphale doesn't learn about The Second Coming until after this. So the end of the world that Crowley references here is the end of *their* world and that means no nightingales. No romance. No *them*, together. Worth remembering that Crowley thought, up until maybe what? Five minutes ago? That they were headed to breakfast at the Ritz together. They should have been sitting there together *in this moment*, is what he's saying. Miracling the pianist to play "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" and gazing at one another over teapots and mimosas and croissants.

That's gone, since you chose Heaven instead, is what Crowley states and Aziraphale knows it because, God help him (no, literally, GOD HELP HIM! WHERE THE HELL DID YOU GO OFF TO THIS SEASON, FRANCES?!), it's what he's *trying* to make happen.

You idiot, says the once-Bildad the Shuite, who thought he was taking his beloved to the ox rib special this morning and not getting dumped for an old floating head and the cinematic world's most contentious to-go cup of coffee, we could have been... us.

Not really a part of the theory here, just the observation that Crowley's confession/proposal begins with him unable to say "a couple", in case this all goes pear-shaped and he needs to have never said something that romantic, so he says instead "a team", "a group-- of the two of us". He says it without saying it. But, by the end? He just says "us." He *present*-tenses it. He's like forget everything else, angel, we could have just kept on being us because we both know what we are. We don't need to find the right turn of phrase or even the most specific human word for it. We are just *us* and we could have kept on with that but you chose the mentality of your abusive family and asked me to be what I'm not and I still love you because I *know* you but I can't be with you like that and *you* know that.

And he kisses him. Because Franny McD says you ain't suffered enough yet, Aziraphale lol. Should I just gif it while we're miserable? If you've read this far, a month has passed and hopefully, you've taken breaks and I do apologize but I'm gonna gif it because yeah. Here we go, folks...

God, make it stop, pleads Aziraphale to literal God and here comes Crowley with the S1 wall slam parallel, all dammit, angel, I know you've wanted us to snog for centuries and this is our last chance.

I know people have opinions about this kiss and I know we're all posting them here, obviously myself included, but while I've seen a lot of like... 'Crowley knows it's the only time they ever will be able to because Aziraphale is leaving him for Heaven' and 'Crowley wants to remind Aziraphale what he's giving up and could have had' and 'Crowley tries the kiss to see if it'll change Aziraphale's mind' takes-- and I agree with all of those things and think they're all right-- I've not seen a lot of 'Crowley kisses Aziraphale *for Aziraphale*' and I think that's a big part of it, too.

Crowley really isn't stupid. Not when it comes to Aziraphale wanting him. It would be honestly hard to spend a zillion lifetimes on Earth and not get it after like...

And Crowley understands Aziraphale's particular brand of religious trauma more than most, since he has a variant version of it himself. He understands that where his whole thing is that he's very much *not* an angel anymore, that Aziraphale's identity is wrapped up in being one and the conflicts he has with Heaven and while Crowley is not yet quite hearing what Nina said-- that she just got out of an abusive relationship and that she's not yet ready to be with Maggie and needs time-- and marrying that to Aziraphale and Heaven (especially because Aziraphale is showing exactly zero signs of trying to get out of his relationship with Heaven lol), Crowley wants Aziraphale to have had what he (Aziraphale) wanted, even if it was for only a moment. He can't go with him. This is the *one* scenario where Crowley cannot follow where Aziraphale goes, where he can't come to him and rescue him, because Aziraphale has said he doesn't want him to. Aziraphale wants to go and do this and the only way he'll take Crowley is if Crowley wants to become an angel again, which Crowley will not do.

And damned if there isn't a part of Aziraphale that thinks that if The Metatron can really be trusted, wouldn't that be something? That if he gets up there to Heaven and he really is made Supreme Archangel and if Crowley changes his mind, if he comes back, like he always does... if he storms out and leaves but then misses him too much and takes the elevator up... then maybe Aziraphale could make him an angel again and while Crowley hears in Aziraphale offering that you aren't good enough as a demon-- you're not good, period and even if he doesn't totally believe that Aziraphale really thinks that but knows Aziraphale has enough religious conflict that it's a problem for their relationship, what Aziraphale *really* means is... I could fix it.

I could go back and un-Fall you. I could take away your pain. I could stop your suffering. I'd have the *power* to do it when I don't right now and it kills me, every day. I could right the wrong I did, the sin I committed-- the real Original Sin-- six thousand years ago when I betrayed you, when Heaven betrayed you.

I could do right by you, the way She never did.

I am going to Heaven to either have the power to do that or to be obliterated into non-existence and I don't totally know which, though surviving is not looking promising, but all I know is that it's too dangerous for you to follow me right now until I do know so I'd rather hurt you than see you dead.

You want to be with me and I am afraid it will lead to your destruction so I need to say anything to put the breaks on your attempt and make you back off. To a lesser extent, I've done it before. Can do again.

Only this time, no hope of the possible, future picnic, I'm afraid...

It really is the worst possible Aziraphale nightmare here like... everything he's ever wanted. Six millennia of wanting to pull Crowley close and he has to reject him or Crowley could die. Fanfic season here said Coffee Shop AU and also a reverse-Fuck or Die for the ages. People complaining that it's awkward? YES. It's supposed to be. Crowley has no idea that Aziraphale is facing a round of sudden death here and was just hoping for his one fabulous kiss and vavoom. Even if it didn't change anything-- he wanted *Aziraphale* to feel that. To know how much he's wanted this for so long and to have it, even if they can't again. The intent is terribly romantic, as is Aziraphale flailing in the middle of it and giving in because he is made of strong, halo-exploding stuff here but he's wanted this forever. He goes up on his toes, he leans in, his hands flail around and he touches Crowley's back. He *shouldn't* do any of this if he's trying to meet his goal of getting Crowley to leave because it gave Crowley hope. It might have even been what motivated Crowley to stay outside and not go right away, or at least a part of it. But Aziraphale had to because he loves him and he couldn't help it.

Then, *sob*, The Michael Sheen eviscerating all of us here...

For anyone who might still be saying that is an "I didn't want his kiss" face... hard, HARD, VERY HARD disagree. That is "I didn't want *this* kiss, like this, right now." That is a man-shaped being who was just kissed by the love of his life for what may have been the first time but, at minimum, is for what he believes will be the *last* time. (I'm still out here holding out some hope for Blitz, Part 3-- a nice first kiss after they kill some Zombie Nazis with Chekhov's derringer in the bookshop but I digress...somehow, even if this entire long meta is one long digression, I digress lol...)

It's the face of a man gutted by the fact that this, in his wildest dreams, was not supposed to happen like this and he's been alive for damn ever at this point so he's had *all* the wildest dreams. And a lot of them, let's be real, have centered around Crowley doing just this. Exactly this. Crowley ain't wrong with the 'grabbing him by the collar and kissing him senseless in the middle of the bookshop' thing. He's wanted to do it for centuries. And the middle of the bookshop bit? That's important, too. This is their home. It's *their* home, even if Crowley is technically homeless. It's safe for him in here and Aziraphale has made it so. It's where they've spent thousands of hours together, happy and safe in each other's company, and here they are, bouille-bouile-bouile-baby-ing finally and it's a complete and utter, unmitigated trash truck dumpster fire.

Honestly, this was a better kiss than in S2 lol. S1 laying down though how long they've been dreaming about it (and having Crowley start listing animals that are in Aziraphale's nonsense magic spell, like he flashes back to 1941 when thinking about the end of the world and kissing Aziraphale in the bookshop... so you can see why I'm moderately hopeful that maybe they did kiss then, once, before then trying to never again until Crowley kisses Aziraphale in 2.06.)

I'm going to bring this back around now to the comparison I made above with Crowley and Jesus and talk about how 2.06's end scenes are also like the last temptation of Christ. Good Omens makes it pretty clear that Aziraphale is the tempter, really, of the two of them, in their relationship. Crowley can't say no to him and Aziraphale has learned it and loves to puppy eyes Crowley into anything he wants.

Crowley knows it and is fine with it. He's smitten and happy to be wrapped around Aziraphale's finger. Crowley has tempted Aziraphale and we see that in S2 with the ox rib. He is, himself, just by existing, tempting to Aziraphale. But in terms of temptation carrying with it a bit of manipulation and *that* kind of tempting being what's demonic in nature? Then Aziraphale is, and always has been, the demon of the two of them. This is true into the end of S2, as while there is almost nothing that Crowley would deny Aziraphale, there is really only one thing and that's to change who he is for him. To become an angel again, to work for Heaven again, after what they've done to him and Aziraphale. So the end of S2 is then Aziraphale's temptation-- it's a test, of sorts, for Crowley, even if Aziraphale doesn't intend for it to be. Crowley resists the temptation. Even for Aziraphale, he won't follow the path of darkness for himself and become something he's not. Crowley-Jesus. (Aziraphale-Satan S3 incoming lol.)

And if you've been reading all of this right then you know what happens next and what it means from the POV of this guilt-ridden Aziraphale...

I honestly don't think Aziraphale is really that angry *with Crowley* at this point-- I think he's just angry. He's reached his limit and then some. He has a lot of simmering, under the surface rage on a good day that only bubbles over when he's stressed by a situation he can't control and here is the ultimate one, really. He's a little mad at Crowley because they've waited countless years for that and in an argument, while ironically probably kind of perfect for them, is not really how *either* of them wanted it to be... but, mostly, Aziraphale is just angry that he can't have any of those moments at all. That they're out of time. That they had all this time and they never really could be safely together and that he's been haunted for six thousand years of the image of his fluffy cloud of redheaded sunshine, bloodied and stricken, and then tossed to Hell while Aziraphale was powerless to stop it. He's never seen those eyes since and he loves the snake ones. He loves all of Crowley with all he has but he's never been allowed to *have* him and never felt safe enough to try and now it's all over. And he still has to make Crowley fucking leave this bookshop for his plan of self-sacrifice to fucking work here so...

...I forgive you. It's the worst thing he can think of. The thing Crowley always hates. The thing that he knows makes Crowley feel lesser and demonic, even if Aziraphale has always, always meant it as an I love you. He even spits it out to Crowley with an almost self-deprecating, referential tone to it-- like "here we go again-- you say you love me and I say 'I forgive you' because I can't say anything else, can I?" The anger is laced underneath it and all the pain but he's intentionally referencing how this this the thing he says whenever Crowley says they can be their own side. He's trying to claim that nothing has changed in all of these years, when they both know that everything has changed since S1 and the bandstand. That's what makes it hurt both of them even more. Aziraphale chooses to say "I forgive you" because he knows that Crowley has never heard it for how Aziraphale means it and Aziraphale is a little bitter about it and lets it show in the moment, since Aziraphale's I forgive you always really means...

I can't stand to see you in pain and if there's any power in me as an angel to stop it, then I will do that so I forgive you and may that make it easier, may that make it all okay, even though I know it won't.

And just before saying I forgive you, Aziraphale's mouth works and he almost-- almost-- says I love you instead... what Crowley would really give anything to hear.

You can see the 'l' forming there, the beginning of "love", what he *really* wanted to say... what Crowley himself didn't even actually explicitly say. Crowley said it without saying it. He called them a couple without saying that word, asked for eternity without fully asking for it, said he loved him by acknowledging that they had both been pretending, but Crowley was terrified and so he said the things in a way that made it obvious what he was saying and asking for but, so unused to not speaking in code are they, that Crowley didn't say he loved Aziraphale, not directly. He did say it. He just didn't say it in those words.

And for a second, Aziraphale almost does.

He can't stand that he's breaking Crowley's heart. He can't stand that Crowley has kissed him and Aziraphale only briefly kissed him back, only barely touched him, when he really wanted to go at him like an ox rib and never let him go, and he starts to say the truth because no part of him really *wants* to be lying like this to Crowley. But he stops. And not even just because he needs Crowley to leave the shop to save his life but because, in the last four minutes, Crowley has confessed love and proposed and they've kissed and Aziraphale, pretty sure he actually died somewhere in the middle there and he's now stuck somewhere in one of Dante's worst circles of Hell lol, just cannot *also* have this be the moment where he says "I love you" to Crowley.

It's not even false hope that maybe they'll somehow have more time. With Heaven breathing down his neck in the form of The Metatron, Aziraphale has no real hope of that. He just always dreamed of telling him and not like this. He doesn't want Crowley to hear it like this, either, not as a part of a rejection. The anger, instead, surfaces, because why can't he and Crowley just *have* this?! How the hell did Gabriel and Beezlebub get to fuck off to Alpha Centauri after dating for ten minutes when he and Crowley have spent bloody eons in queer pining hell over here? What did they ever do that was so wrong to deserve this? Why was Crowley asking questions so terrible? Why have they had to spend thousands of years pretending not to love each other as if love-- the epitome of the angelic-- was unholy? Why, Aziraphale is wondering, now that they are out of time, did he ever spend so many years terrified when, in the end, it all ended tragically anyway?

How many of those years could Aziraphale have spent loving Crowley the way they ought to have been able to have and denied themselves of for so long?

And then Crowley finally does it. Tells him "don't bother" about the forgiveness-- about the love, as Aziraphale has always meant it-- and he leaves. It worked. The anger and pain and saying "I forgive you" after that kiss... it worked. And Crowley leaves and Aziraphale, alone, is a complete mess of broken and furious and broken some more.

Crowley, as we know, doesn't get to see this moment. Muriel does! Great for fic! Hilarious by show standards that the new angel who is literally being ordered to take over Aziraphale's home against his will is who witnesses the aftermath of the intimate moment our angel has been craving, oh, just since before the dawn of humanity over here.

He touches his lips, his hand trembles... have you all noticed that Aziraphale is literally fucking *tasting and eating* what of himself Crowley left in his mouth here? He's pulling every bit of Crowley to his tongue from his teeth and *swallowing*, like he knows it's all of him he'll ever again be able to consume, like he's committing how he tastes to memory for the last like, who knows, ten? fifteen? twenty minutes? of his own existence that he knows he probably has left...

Jesus fucking Christ, Michael Sheen...

This is all without yet mentioning the single most under-analyzed line in S2 that calls into question a ton of stuff, which is this beauty from Shax, right off the top of 2.01:

"Beezlebub's put some of the lesser demons on half-rations."

What does this have to do with Aziraphale consuming Crowley's kiss like it's the most scrumptious thing he's ever tasted (because it is) and being furious that it'll be their last?

Because that Shax line casually confirms that demons eat. Do they eat human food or some sort of demon food or both? Who knows, really, but they're *supposed* to eat. Ok, but is it just a demon thing? No, because it ties to Crowley's comments in S1 about how he complained that the food wasn't really that good lately when hanging out with Lucifer and The Gang, which then implies that, at least back then, *angels* ate, too. Eating was a normal thing. Over time, though, we know that the higher angels have come to see eating as human and pedestrian and not something befitting of an angel. Some demons eat-- even Crowley eats, if less than and differently than Aziraphale-- but the angels think it's beneath them and if we have confirmation via Shax in S2 that they are supposed to be eating and basically only don't die because they're immortal beings and not human, even if they have human corporations, then the show is saying that all of these angels are fucking starving themselves.

They're doing what they're told and denying their own nature and their own needs in the process.

S2 also shows that with the ox rib, right?

Aziraphale went *at* that thing. He'd never eaten at all in a couple thousand years after being told it was un-angelic and so when he tasted food for the first time, he went so overboard that he's been Mr. Prim and Proper with his napkins and table etiquette ever since out of embarrassment over Crowley watching him food orgasm once-- and that's the metaphor there, as we've all figured out. Our show that has a sex worker named Mrs. Sandwich is all about its ongoing food-as-sex metaphor. S2 even opens with the hilarious turnabout from S1 as a "thank you for my pornography", "why do you consume *that*?" Gabriel shows up at the bookshop-- naked-- and has a food orgasm trying hot chocolate for the first time.

Gabe, babe, Aziraphale does not need the play-by-play here....

Mah point is... mah point is that Tumblr is maxing me at 30 images per post and so you'll just have to picture Crowley slurring "dolphins" while I get to my actual point here...

Mah point is while this is a whole separate analysis almost and one that many of you have already done in different ways re: food & sex on the show, my point here is that starving yourself of food in Good Omens is analogous to being touch-starved or love-deprived and before someone yells at me about how angelic beings don't necessarily need sex or are by nature not into sex unless they make an Effort, I agree with you and Neil Gaiman. I'm just also saying the show is suggesting that they all have human corporations and that many of those human corporations are not sex-averse so for those of them that are not, they're literally out here touch-starved and/or sex-starved here in different ways. But, you say, maybe Crowley is hungry (goodness knows, Crowley *is hungry* lol) but Aziraphale eats all the time!

Yeah. Aziraphale eats *food*, all the time. But he isn't touched all the time. He doesn't have sex all the time. He isn't kissed all the time. The 2.06 scene shows him *physically* making that metaphor of food and sex real for us-- we watch him *consume* what remains of Crowley's kiss--showing that he's desperate for it and deprived of it. He's starved for it, to a point of trembling hands and rolling every bit of Crowley's lingering taste around his mouth like he's taking on every last bite of the best crepe he could ever imagine in all his days...

...and then being, understandably, full of rage that this is the only time he's going to ever have Crowley-- and all he's ever going to have of him, when Crowley just offered all of himself-- forever.

And then The Metatron comes back and is Aziraphale ready to go to his death now? And, Friends, Aziraphale...

...is absolutely not.

He's turned away from the door, barely containing tears. When the door opened and he turned, he half-hoped it'd be Crowley but it was grr That Bastard instead. He looks out the window and Crowley is still out there...

...he left but he didn't really *leave*... and it somehow then still isn't over and will someone please just take Aziraphale out back and angel-shoot him? He can't take any more of this.

What about the shop? he asks, in a moment of desperation and terror over what's to come and some blind, stupid hope that he can somehow get out of all of this with him and Crowley still alive and The Metatron, who anticipated this, tells him Muriel lives here now. Aziraphale looks around the home he's made for him and Crowley for the last 223 years and his favorite books and possessions. Crowley's hat from 1941 is on the hat stand, the horse statue is where Crowley put his glasses back when he trusted him, back when he let Aziraphale see his pretty yellow eyes whenever Aziraphale wanted in recent years... before he just put his glasses back on now and closed himself off again.

Aziraphale is never going to see those eyes he loves again. He didn't even get to kiss Crowley without the sunglasses on before it was all over.

Even Gabriel had something to take up to Heaven with him to remind him of the demon he loved but Aziraphale goes to Heaven and to his death empty-handed because he pushed Crowley away to save him from all of this and, in the final push, he looks at Crowley standing there by The Bentley, all that secretly optimistic, beautiful, romantic hope about him still in him from the angel Aziraphale first met, all the awareness there of Aziraphale-- the only being who really knows him-- and so he's still waiting, still hoping. It goes back a few hours to the ball.

I'll be back. I won't leave you on your own.

But it's Aziraphale's call now and he gets into the elevator. The Metatron wins because Aziraphale's love for Crowley wins. He'll die before he lets anything happen to him, even if he wants to run to that car and to him but where would they run *to*? There's no place to go. Crowley has always been wrong about that. They can't go off together. There's no place safe from Heaven for them.

So Aziraphale gets into the elevator at The Dirty Donkey, leaving Crowley alone in the street once again, just with less hope this time than in 1967.

So Aziraphale leaves the bookshop this time, instead of going into it like he did in S1, when he left Crowley in the street, standing beside The Bentley, while clutching a different book this time-- Agnes Nutter's prophecies in his hand versus The Book of Life and its threatened erasure hanging over Aziraphale like the specter that it is. What was predicted about the future versus erasure from the past and all time. Nothing to see here, Crowley! Everything is as it's seems.

Everything is tickety-boo!

Tickety-boo?

Yes, which is also what Aziraphale-as-Crowley said... when he was kidnapped by Heaven and Hell in S1, remember? When he was taken from Earth to be sentenced to death... along *with* Crowley.

This time, Aziraphale is shutting Crowley out again. Telling him 'mind how you go' again, this time a bit more, uh, emphatically lol. And on their heels, again, the end of the world. Arma-bloody-geddon 2.0: The Second Coming.

Aziraphale heard The Metatron saying that was the plan-- as, of course, our villain walked away and meant for it not to be totally heard, further implying that they have no plans to really make Aziraphale the Supreme Archangel and that this is all a remix of Fraulein Greta Klauschmidt. That then makes this all somehow *even worse*... because now Aziraphale gets in the elevator to ride up to his death to save Crowley but now he knows that it was all for nothing.

War is coming. The planet they love will be destroyed. Crowley, if he knows him well enough, will likely die trying to save it. When he does, he'll still be damned to Hell for all of eternity while Aziraphale thinks he likely won't exist at all once he makes it upstairs and Michael finally gets to Book of Life him. Let the other angels think he's been played for a sucker. Better they think him a fool than that they come for Crowley.

He doesn't want to Fall and doesn't wish for it. If they take his memories as punishment, and they almost certainly will, he won't remember any of the moments he spent with Crowley and even if they could have eternity together in Hell if the world is destroyed, he wouldn't wish Crowley the pain of being around him when he didn't remember anything.

Aziraphale only finding out about The Second Coming in the moment before he gets on the elevator-- *after* everything happens with Crowley-- is a million times worse because now Aziraphale is riding to his death knowing that everything they've done in six thousand years doesn't matter and that the events of S1 didn't matter because all it did was delay the inevitable end of the world and everything Aziraphale loves is about to be destroyed.

That, apparently, was God's ineffable, Great Plan.

All of that is what is on Aziraphale's face on the ride up to Heaven in the final splitscreen.

In that splitscreen, Crowley, for what it's worth, is visually echoing the driving back from Tadfield bit that leads to the "tickety-boo" moment of Aziraphale lying to him by omission. He looks close to a parallel to the S1 moment where he suddenly yelled:

"DUCKS!"

They're what water slides off of. In this context? They were also the thing itching at the back of Crowley's mind-- the not quite right thing, the puzzle he couldn't quite figure out, the question he coudln't yet quite answer... until he could. That's positive, actually. It means there might be something for him to realize, even if that realization might come too late in the short term. (They will solve everything and be fine, memory-intact, immortal beings in love who go off together by the end of it. This is all just until then.)

Ducks are also, sort of, the be all and end all of Good Omens. Crowley knows how to take care of them, after all, when others do not. You feed them frozen peas-- they are good for them and they love them, too. (Don't feed him coffee, you Metatron idiot! He only ever drank one mug of it in S1 and it led to the *points above* see: tickety-boo Aziraphale lying to Crowley paralleling sequence of scenes.) [The "do you have one, single, better idea?" scene is Aziraphale drinking coffee, for reference.]

So, yeah, by comparison here... Aziraphale, you are a duck lol. You have been fed bread by idiots for far too long when, really, you need to be eating frozen peas. Crowley knows this and he knows how to take care of you. With any luck, he's about to have his duck-moment-paralleling epiphany any moment now, though I fear you're already going to be memory-wiped and fallen to Hell when he does. That's okay, though, because this is the main scene that still needs a go-around in paralleling and we know Crowley knows where the dungeons are down there from unfortunate, personal experience.

Cottage in the south downs, cottage in the south downs, cottage in the south downs, cottage....

Notes: Hi! If you have made it all the way here, thank you for reading. I hope it was worth the read for you. You all write such great stuff that I felt inspired to put my lit and film studies and psych background to use and jump in a bit. Thanks for indulging me. I also wish to note that there is a gif above that is by @fuckyeahgoodomens but for some reason, the credit was not working properly so I just wanted to make sure you knew who was providing us the visual joy.

[sinybird]

MİDHEALT - PLATİN (2)

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[neon-kazoo]

Villains I dont see very often; mute. Mute villains are the best, nothing can convince me otherwise.

One idea thats been on my mind is a mute villain confessing to the hero, either through sign language, or a perfectly executed scheme. You’re choice :))

Not sure if this counts, but I ran with it. Might try this again after I gather some ASL knowledge. Hope you enjoy :)

A Silent Movie

It wasn’t exactly easy to get Hero sat in front of the cinema screen. In fact, the planning for this trap had taken over sixth months. Not to mention the money it took to buy this building off foreclosure, and the multitude of investments into Hero-proofing the location.

It was even harder to get said hero to stop yelling long enough to pay attention to the image being projected from the back of the room. Not that their sense of hearing was needed for this experience, but Villain imagined Hero would appreciate the lack of noise-based distractions, including sounds they themselves were making.

The theater was notably large, probably the most expensive showing room of its day. That is to say, the upholstery was a little outdated. The popcorn had been swept off the floor, the swirling carpet surprisingly clean. The velvet of the seats did not appear stained, and the cupholders were absent of any discarded snacks or tickets.

The glow of the emergency exit lights were the only thing illuminating the room, and they revealed a dim image of the hero situated in the center of the third row, which was optimal seating in the villain’s opinion.

Clearly, Hero did not agree, considering how hard they were pulling at the restraints to try and exit their carefully selected theater chair.

It was futile, of course, and the hero finally stopped straining when the villain appeared a row below them, quiet as a mouse, standing with a finger pressed to their lips.

Villain retreated when the hero quieted, letting their attention shift to the screen and this special showing. Images flicked past, and Hero became engrossed in the story unfolding on the screen.

Shown was a news reel Hero recognized as the time Villain had crashed their Election Day speech. A zoomed out map of the city, marking City Hall with a red square. Grainy footage of two figures dancing around next to a dumpster. Once again the map appeared, now with two squares pasted on top. The pattern continued, and Hero was amazed.

It was an agglomeration of every moment they had spent together, every public battle, every nighttime-shady-alley encounter.

There was only one reason to collect these momentos, these reminders. It had all meant something to the villain.

The complete lack of kernels on the carpet certainly pointed to a level of dedication and commitment to this scheme.

Maybe, they were hoping it meant something to the hero, too.

Another scene zoomed out a final time, revealing all the markers spread across the city. Only, now, Hero noticed, a rather distinct pattern had formed.

Villain moved like a phantom, appearing again, this time at the hero’s side. The ropes at their wrists fell away like magic while Hero gazed at the awkwardly hovering villain. They presented the hero with a glittering object hung from a chain held loose around their fingers. It was a large ruby gem, expertly cut into the shape of a 3-D heart.

Stolen, no doubt, Hero suspected possibly from the large jewelry exhibition that had just entered town.

The screen flashed bright, and lit up the hero’s face as it contorted in surprise. They processed the scene as fast as they could.

A heart of red markers, a heart of ruby, a heart fluttering in their chest, a heart laid open in front of them.

“Oh,” Hero breathed, “Oh.”

Villain sucked in a breath.

This was it, this was the moment they got rejected because they couldn’t-

“I had no idea.”

Of course they didn’t know, it’s not like Villain had ever spoken about it.

Preparing automatically for the rejection, Villain started to withdraw their hand, cold-as-steel demeanor returning to them with all the familiarity of a security blanket.

It was so stupid of them to think that they deserved any kind of reciprocation, so stupid to think that the hero could possibly-

The hero snatched the charm from their fingers before they fully withdrew.

“I didn’t say no,” they spoke softly, and the villain’s heart skipped a beat.

They reached out their other hand, wrapping their fingers over the still-outstretched hand of the villain. Instead of elaborating, Hero pulled the frozen criminal closer, connecting their lips in a gentle proclamation.

Actions spoke louder than words anyway.

[punksocks]

Astrology Observations: No.25

*just based on my personal observations, only take what resonates

Omg my first degree theory observation was wrong Danial Kwan has moon at 18 degree, a Virgo degree ! (My bad y’all I’m learning). I’ll say that he had to get a hold of his mental health while in Covid and his adult adhd diagnosis and that influenced the writing of everything all at once (Imma learn this lol, more studying must be done)

Ok better degree theory lol, the degree of your Venus and/or mars can show placements you attract. My Venus is at a cancer degree and I’ve dated a l o t of people with Cancer placements (an experience lol)

A guy’s Lilith can show that his sort of femme fatale attraction (type of girl that overstimulates him, makes him feel enamored but is also his weakness.) His Lilith placement can describe this femme in more detail. For Aries, a go getter that takes no shit (I believe @zeldasnotes said Lilith in Aries in a man’s chart is a strong indicator that he’s a feminist and I totally agree.); For Sagittarius she’d be untethered and have a great sense of humor and may be outside of his culture. For Aquarius she’d be idealized as a manic pixie dream girl, like quirky in a way he could never figure out. let me know if you all would like a whole post on this !

Only outer planets (Uranus, Neptune, Pluto) in your 1st can give you an extra ordinary appearance and make you stand out quite a bit.

Your mars conjunct to someone’s sun can make them feel competitive with you. Venus on the other hand can make you put the sun person on a sort of pedestal and can make the relationship feel like you’re a fan of the sun person. Moon to someone’s sun can feel more at home and at ease.

Men with water Venuses seem to be super monogamous or like incapable of monogamy (which is fine lol, but be ethical about it and establish boundaries and don’t cheat yo)

12th house synastry is sticky asl, as soon as you moved on someone just appears on your mind out of nowhere, lotta hidden energy all tied up together; 8th house synastry is really intense but it’s often hard to build something stable out of the intensity. 4th house feels like home, but as someone with Uranus over their 4th, I associate this synastry with being unpredictable and chaotic in familiar way. 5th and 11th house synastry tends to be good long term. 5th house means you feel fun and creative and always excited together. And 11th house will mean that there’s a feeling of friendship underneath the passion that usually sustains the connection imo.

For all of the seriousness associated with Capricorn placements (especially suns) often focus on a lot on whimsy in their creative works, like it’s the outlet for a lot of their hidden optimism (Hayao Miyazaki, Nobuhiko Obayashi the director of Hausu).

Ok ok I know Scorpio risings are known for intense, bedroom eyes and their overwhelming s*x appeal and making suitors flee because they’re so intimidated etc etc… but quietly I think our biggest weapon that people don’t see coming is our sense of humor. (Honest to god I was thinking of how funny Hugh Grant is even though he doesn’t need to be bc he’s been so handsome this whole time lol. He always puts in the effort into that comedic timing) (Also people still think if you’re hot and intense you can’t be funny so it defuses some of the tension pretty well imo)

I feel like Virgo placements always seem to think they feel boring even though they’re like very knowledgeable and compelling in their own right (I’m getting all reflective and remember when like Virgo moons/mars would always ask if they’re being boring or complain about being boring but they tend to be good conversationalists when they allow themselves to analyze things so deeply)

I think cancers are actually the most defensive sign, naturally. I want to say they have this in common with their sister sign bc Capricorns are defensive and don’t like to show “weakness”. But the way that underdeveloped cancers (can) play the victim when scrutinized is different. (Like Capricorns do that earth sign thing where they use their perception to make you feel like you’re wrong, and they want to be seen as the authority not the victim). Where cancer is in your chart could show where you’re especially guarded and trying to protect your sensitivity.

To me Jupiter conjunct south node means you’ll reap benefits of good karma from a past life (or the effects of bad karma will be a lot in this lifetime but I saw this in obama’s chart and it’s a benefic planet so the first thing is what I thought of lol, he’s not a good guy but becoming the first black president of the us seems like a past life power play imo)

[csuitebitches]

Book Review- The Wealth Elite: A Groundbreaking Study of the Psychology of the Super Rich, by Rainer Zitelmann Notes

I came across this book because I was looking for psychology books. I found the first of the book rather boring and too textbook-y. The second part is much better.

The author interviewed like 45 millionaire - billionaires. These were his findings.

—

48% stated that real estate was an ‘important’ source of their wealth, and one in ten described real estate as the ‘most important’ aspect of their personal wealth-building. And a total of 20% described stock market gains as an ‘important’ factor in wealth-building, although in this case only 2.4% stated that this was the ‘most important’ factor in building their wealth.

‘Creative intelligence’ is key to financial success. The following is a comparison between the percentage of entrepreneurs (and in brackets the percentage of attorneys) who agreed that the following factors played a decisive role in their financial success: seeing opportunities others do not see: 42 (19); finding a profitable niche: 35 (14).

The role of habitus

* Intimate knowledge of required codes of dress and etiquette

* Broad-based general education

* An entrepreneurial attitude, including an optimistic outlook on life

* Supreme self-assurance in appearance and manner.

He identifies a key quality that is essential for any prospective appointee to the executive board or senior management of a major company: habitual similarities to those who already occupy such positions.

Skillset of Entrepreneurs

* The ‘conqueror’. The entrepreneur has to have the ability to make plans and a strong will to carry them out.

* The ‘organizer’. The entrepreneur has to have the ability to bring large numbers of people together into a happy, successful creative force.

* The ‘trader’. What Sombart describes as a ‘trader’, we would more likely call a talented salesperson today. The entrepreneur has to “confer with another, and, by making the best of your own case and demonstrating the weakness of his, get him to adopt what you propose. Negotiation is but an intellectual sparring match.”

Entrepreneurial success personality traits

* Commitment

* Creativity

* A high degree of extroversion

* Low levels of agreeableness

Entrepreneurial success personality traits

* Orientation towards action after suffering disappointments (the entrepreneur remains able to act, even after failure)

* Internal locus of control (the conviction “I hold my destiny in my own two hands”)

* Optimism (the expectation that the future holds positive things in store)

* Self-efficacy (the expectation that tasks can be performed successfully, even in difficult circumstances).

constant power struggles with their teachers in order to ascertain who would emerge the stronger from such confrontations.

Secret of selling

* Empathy

* Didactics

* Expert knowledge

* Networking.

Conscientiousness is the dominant personality trait. Extroversion is also very common among the interviewees. Openness to Experience is very common

A high tolerance to frustration is one of the most characteristic personality traits of this group.

exceptionally high levels of mental stability.

primarily characterize entrepreneurs as being prepared to swim against the current and make their decisions irrespective of majority opinion.

“No, I never did that (lost my temper). I never get loud. But I can be resolute and say: “That is unacceptable.” And then you either have to go your separate ways or make a decision that the other party might not like. It’s the same in negotiations. I was always described by other people as a bit of a toughie.”

Having the courage to stand against majority opinion is probably a prerequisite for making successful investments, as this is what makes it possible to buy cheap and sell high.

Many of the interviewees spoke about their ability to switch off and direct their focus, even in the event of major problems. The interviewees consistently referred to their ability to focus on solutions, rather than torturing themselves with problems.

At least in the initial phases of wealth creation, most of the interviewees rated their own risk profiles as very high. This changes during the stabilization phase, when risk profiles decrease. In this phase, the hypothesis of moderate risk does apply.

Conscientiousness was the interviewees’ most dominant personality trait. It is important to remember that the Big Five theory’s definition of conscientiousness does not just include qualities such as duty, precision, and thoroughness, but also emphasizes diligence, discipline, ambition, and stamina.

[twost3ps]

To truly live is to learn

Full image

Alr enough thirst posting here is something normal

I love burly big Adam but I do think Adam in Eden was def a twink/twunk or something. No body hair at all meaning sadly no beard goatee thing until he got booted

The booting was his twink death that blossomed into big baddie dilf with a dumpy but yk

Anywaysss I don't typically write about my Micheal/my guitarhero au so here is some lore dropping/info (very based off colors of the wind)

Lore drop under the cut o3o

So for my au, I'd like to make it where Micheal is no knowledge of eden or math in general. Unlike Lucifur, who had directly been involved in the creation of Eden, Micheal had guarded the walls of Eden only. He had very little interest in the project due to it being entirely separate from heaven.

They -life on earth- were, to him, inferior. Earth is destined to change. Yes, heaven changes to, but not as much as the dramatic way earth does.

Living beings are not born in the know, made to start from scratch. They are made to learn. Mistakes and stumbles were to be expected.

Angels also learn, but they are created to have all the knowledge they need to stay independent. Very rarely do they ever have to ask.

Basically, new gen angels get an automatic system upgrade from the older angels, while the older ones need to follow up.

Lilith and Adam were born able to speak, but they had to learn about heaven and the garden on their own or be deliberately taught. And their eventual children will have to come into the earth and learn, mind bare and maleable

They were made to be guided while angels typically don’t need any guidance at all. Which is why Micheal does not care for life on earth- it struggles and is not optimal.

It is simply another pet project that God had made that would eventually die out (the dinosaurs)

Micheal doesn't willingly go into the garden until he spots his brother sneaking in when they were supposed to be off duty. He rushes after him to take him back and chastise him until he meets Adam on his search.

They talk and stuff the first night and micheal eventually finds himself wandering into the garden on his own free will.

Now, he still thinks the garden is weird and takes interest in only Adam. Hes a bit vocal about it when Adam shows him an animal and plant. Micheal asks him why it's so important or so precious. He simply does not understand. He does on a level understand it’s textbook level significance, but emotionally

This is kinda where the learning part comes in

Adam explains to him that life, beyond just him is precious. And beyond him it’s the beautiful world around him. Not just the inherent beauty, but the beauty of just being, growing, and existing.

Essentially they have a ‘colors of the wind’ moment where Adam tells (I guess sings if we're thinking on a musical standpoint) Micheal that Eden is equally as beautiful as heaven and that they are both equals in respect. That there is so much that Eden has to offer. Micheal slowly comes to understand it as he tries to have more of an open mind to creation other than just being a project.

So Micheal joins Adam as they explore Eden together. Micheal helps him reach places than Adam couldn’t have seen alone. They talk about theories or their ideas on why certain things grow and form that way. Micheal finds an appreciation for life on earth and growth, and that maybe things aren’t so bad if they’re stagnant. He falls in love with earth. And without realizing it he also falls in love with Adam.

It’s supposed to like a parallel to Lucifer and Lilith

Lucifer meets Lilith and teaches her about Eden and other knowledge which makes her interested in the world outside of Eden

Micheal meets Adam and Adam teaches him about Eden, making him interested in the world inside of Eden

But yippeee

Btw any lore I ever drop is non linear bcz I don't know how to write

[charmedreincarnation]

Hey, guys! I've been receiving a ton of messages in response to my last post. It's reminding me of how I first discovered shifting. I feel like doing a little story time since Ive just passed the three-year mark of my discovery, and I've been reminiscing with friends about it.

I remember being in a very dark place when I stumbled upon shifting. I was depressed, and very suicidal. Yet, there was this unshakeable optimism inside me that I was meant for an extraordinary life. Despite my mental state, I had a lot of knowledge of subliminals and the law of attraction (-_-). These gave me hope, but they weren't enough tbh. I didn't want to attract my dream life through practicing gratitude or becoming a magnet for my desires or whatever. Nor did I want to have to listen to subliminals for years on end to achieve my goals. My list of desires was so long, and I needed everything to change that going step by step and waiting years for each one to manifest just wasn't feasible.

But I refused to give up. One day, after a particularly hard day of being sad per usual, I searched on Quora for something like "fastest most powerful subliminals on YouTube ever" (Y’all 😭😭). Among the recommended sub creators, I found a video called "Desired Life: Reality Shifting". The description promised everything I had ever wanted: waking up with all your desires fulfilled permanently in short. It piqued my curiosity so much. Could I really just wake up with my dream life, family, house, wealth, all based on my scripts and imagination?

Growing up, I was a heavy maladaptive daydreamer. From ages 10-17, I created alternate lives in my head, telling myself I would go there someday. I was always doing SATs (State Akin to Sleep), and I think that's what kept me from ending it all. I was constantly in the wish fulfilled state, even though I didn't know what that was at the time.

Back to my story, I went into the comments of that video and came across a guy who claimed that after a week of using this subliminal, he woke up with a new life as a multi-millionaire living in his dream penthouse. I messaged him, and he gave me his Instagram which showcased his luxurious life. He had what seemed like a perfect relationship, he was very attractive, had so many cars, and travelled 24/7 while having a six figures amount of followers. He was living proof that this wasn't just scripting. Also the law of attraction community is known for their mad expensive coaching.. like hundreds of dollars per hour for questions and he was answering it all for free something I didn’t see the law of attraction community. And I talked to him for hours! He never got mad, he had proof, and he was kind, proof and the behavior of someone who really had mastered the art of life.

After our conversation, I spent the next couple of months doing research. I found numerous stories about glitches in the matrix, accidental shifting, people entering parallel realities, and eventually, shifting communities on platforms like Amino and Reddit. It was stuff I already believed in and did in my imagination; I just didn’t know there was a term for it.

Then I got reminded of a memory that I had seriously repressed bc it was so fucking weird. When I was 6 and my brother was 3, we were absolutely obsessed with dodo birds. One day, we were outside playing, and on god time seemed to stop. Out of nowhere, a dodo bird appeared. I know you’re probably like “maya be so fr rn you were a kid” but no, This wasn't just our young imaginations running wild - there was a bird that was huge, dinosaur-like, exactly how dodos are described in books and pictures we had.

Then things got weirder. Suddenly it started raining eggs. Big, large eggs everywhere it was so gross and my brother and I were a mess. We were young, sure, but not stupid. We knew this wasn't normal. My brother and I rushed inside to tell our dad. When I managed to drag him outside, he was furious, accusing me of throwing eggs everywhere. To this day, he tells the story of the time I "trashed the backyard with eggs." And every time, I'm like, "Dad, where would I get that many eggs?" We didn’t have eggs but so he assumed I stole them and we went inside for hours and it was magically cleaned. So he also tells the story of how responsible I am and how I took accountability for my actions even as a child. I didn’t clean that shit bro and I tell him that too and he just laughs it makes me so mad.

My brother, who knows I'm into reality shifting (though he doesn’t really believe in it), can't explain that day either. He often shrugs it off as a "glitch in the matrix," which honestly, well no duh it is a shift dummie. He does believe in manifesting but only bc he has seen me use it and he experiences the good things I manifest as well. They’re the same thing anyways but that isn’t the point

The reason I'm bringing up this bizarre childhood memory is because during my months of research into shifting, I found countless stories of accidental shifts, people entering the void, entering parallel universes, time glitches, examples of the Mandela effect first hand, glitches in the matrix and etc. It was like uncovering a myriad of experiences that confirmed what I already believed: we can change and choose our reality. I just didn’t know the phenomena had a name. Obviously in the future I came across other things like the law of assumption, the void state, etc etc but this was where it started.

I wish I had saved all those fascinating stories, posts, and blogs. I might go back and compile everything I found because they were so real and enlightening. It will probably take forever tho if I do choose to do that, but I think it's worth sharing.

In the meantime, check out this accounts of accidental shifts that my friend shared with me this account https://instagram.com/tessicavision?igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA== based off the Glitch in the Matrix subreddit which is also a goldmine of people experiencing similar phenomena. It helped me make sense of my own experiences and might do the same for you.

I don’t want this to be too long and I already got to the point I think! but regardless stay curious and realize you’re really not that special. I mean ofc you are, i mean this is not some tumblr thing teens girls discovered or created and isn’t even limited to “spiritually/manifesting inclined people” I think at the beginning of my journey people talking about accidental shifts and such, inspired me more than purposeful success stories because they really have no reason to lie and they were looking for answers just like I was.