#not saying it's the end all be all truth

[zionworkzs]

Anyone ask for a needlessly long and emotional dissection of when and how Crowley and Aziraphale fell in love? No? Too bad.

I'm going to start with something controversial.

Aziraphale fell in love first.

To explain this, we gotta get a few things out of the way first.

FALLING in love and KNOWING you're in love are very different things. And the whole concept of LOVING someone and BEING IN LOVE are also different things.

Aziraphale LOVES Crowley from, well from before the Beginning. Because they are both angels and angels love. I would even accept the argument that Aziraphale LOVES Crowley throughout their flashback scenes before the Arrangement (because again, he is an angel).

The Arrangement is born out of a symbiotic want of Crowley and Aziraphale to fuck around and not do their jobs enjoy humanity.

It is my personal belief that Aziraphale FELL in love with Crowley in 1941 when he saves the books (not a hot take, I know).

He REALIZES he is in love with Crowley when he gets the Holy Water for him and the closest we get to that is this scene.

Aziraphale thinks that Crowley wants to use the Holy Water as some kind of last-ditch attempt to get out of trouble. He knows it will kill him, and is incredibly dangerous in general. But he does it anyway. Why? Because he knows Crowley would find a way to get it regardless (most likely some dangerous plan that will result in death or grave injury). At least this way Aziraphale can feel somewhat at peace with the knowledge that Crowley no longer needs to do something reckless to get what he wants. He overtly goes against Heaven in this act, and this is one of only a few times we see him do this to such a degree (see Job).

It is my personal belief, and I'm sorry to be this person, but I don't think that Crowley was IN LOVE with Aziraphale in this scene or in any before it (def well on his way, but we'll get there).

I think that Crowley was still hopelessly intrigued by this angel who did fantastical things, like drink and eat and immerse himself in the aspects of humanity he adored.

And another controversial take I have is that the "you go too fast for me" is not Aziraphale saying he recognizes Crowley's feelings and his own and that Crowley is too fast for him in that respect. Because again, I don't think Crowley is IN LOVE with Aziraphale here.

I think Aziraphale is saying you go too fast for me, you treat life like a speedrun to get to the good parts. Hell, Crowley slept through the 19th century because he wanted time to move forward. Aziraphale recognizes this. He's in love with this demon who won't slow down and appreciate the mundane, human things that Aziraphale treasures. He goes too fast. He never settles down.

(I could do a whole analysis on this scene, but we'd be here till GO Season 3 came out)

I also could accept the argument that Azi realizes he is in love in this scene here when he hesitates before saying friends (Michael Sheen I'm in your walls what the hell was this shit).

Because it does make sense that this is the first time we really see Aziraphale say what they are. But he hesitates so much. Keep in mind this happens AFTER the whole book saving incident. Does he hesitate because holy shit the person I like just did something really sweet and I see them in a new light? Possibly. I still think that Aziraphale deciding to give Crowley the Holy Water was his declaration. But I could be swayed.

Crowley is different in this respect. Contrary to popular belief, I think Crowley falls in love with Aziraphale slowly. So slowly that he doesn't even recognize it as being IN LOVE until it's pointed out by Nina.

Because he falls in love slowly, it's hard to pinpoint an exact scene where he is FALLING IN LOVE. I think throughout the first season (and before when the two are meeting up semi-regularly), when he and Aziraphale are trying to co-parent Warlock and the subsequent hunt for the real antichrist is the clearest I can get to him being IN LOVE.

(Putting this gif in because holy shit, I mean, fuck, bro)

Let me explain.

Until this point (the handful of years prior to and during S1), he and Aziraphale were ships passing in the night. Crowley liked the mystery, the excitement of seeing the angel every so often. Got joy out of teasing him. But this is when Aziraphale becomes more than that. He becomes more of a constant in Crowley's life. And ever since his Fall Crowley has craved stability. A safe place to land. He changes his hair, his clothes, his accent. But Aziraphale doesn't. He just... is. He is constant, mostly unchanging, and still endlessly intriguing.

Crowley is IN LOVE with Aziraphale when he realizes that Aziraphale isn't going anywhere (yet). Crowley can rely on him. And for Crowley, that's something he's never had before.

Crowley LOVES Aziraphale. And he is IN LOVE with Aziraphale, but I genuinely don't think he recognizes it until he could lose him. (He's always been a bit dramatic; it would follow that his realizations only occur under dire circumstances).

Here, when he feels he is losing Aziraphale, Crowley does the one thing he never has before: says what he's feeling. Granted, it's sandwiched by a sassy one-liner and being shit at communication. But it's there.

And I think that he thinks, it's a fluke. One moment of weakness.

But then it happens again. When he's losing Aziraphale. And he can't say anymore. He's done his speech, he's thrown out the nightingales. There's nothing for it.

He KNOWS he is IN LOVE with Aziraphale when he's losing him.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Burning Rotten Bridges

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[tenderjock]

I’m with you, my love The lights shining through on you Yes, I’m with you, my love It’s the morning and just we two

[nataliesscatorccio]

YELLOWJACKETS

[jewelsli]

Not that I don’t love when Bruce’s kids outperform him and give him heart attacks, but I think it’s funnier when the kids think they are better fighters/spies/infiltrators/etc. then him but he’s just so proud so he lets them think that they are.

I think that Babs would be a really good hacker, the best in the family, but Tim, who thinks that he is the next best(and is still scarily good) has no idea that Bruce only let him think that he broke his record of hacking into secret organizations.

Dick is amazing at acrobatics, and centers his fighting style around it much more. He even won gold in the Olympics for gymnastics! Bruce doesn’t want to tell him that he trained under several gymnasts, contortionists, even ballerinas!!! and has the acrobatic fighting style mastered, so he (within reason) let’s his kid win on most occasions, he doesn’t need to fake loosing on trapeze though(I am still giving the kids SOME things they are better at…)

Cass knows that nobody can lie to her, she can spot everyone’s tells and knows most people better then they know themselves. Bruce is, however, extremely paranoid and also has a kryptonian he works with regularly. He lies so well that he can convince himself he’s telling the truth(which is literally the point in case of advanced lie detectors), and so what if he lets some of his tells be more obvious around his baby, he’s so proud of her for picking up such small things! And while Bruce is AMAZING at reading people, he can’t beat Cass, it is however much closer matched then the others think.

Let’s be honest, Bruce is banned from the kitchen and isn’t good at cooking… or so everyone thinks. While he’s not as good as Alfred or even Jason he could whip up something Gordon Ramsey would be proud of if he actually tried to.

Damian in the best fighter with swords, this is undisputed. Bruce just hopes none of his kids find his crate of custom katanas in the attic, if they do then he’ll say they are for Damian.

Tim is an amazing investigator, so good in fact, that Bruce has trusted him on his hardest cases. Everyone assumes this is because Tim is a better detective then Bruce, but he just loves seeing how proud his kid gets when he gets a breakthrough.

Batman doesn’t kill, Red hood does, everyone in their right minds knows that’s a lie. Before Robin came along, leaders of drug operations or terrorists would disappear into the night, never to be seen again. The only people who don’t seem to know this are the Bats children themselves. Sometimes you can still hear a cut off scream in the dark before the news announces a missing person that everyone just knew was doing something horrible, criminals are more wary on nights that the Bats brood are in. And people running trafficking rings pray that it’s the Hood when a knock sounds, the bat doesn’t give those people the mercy of death.

All of the bat kids know more languages then Bruce, and they keep learning more to throw him off, for a family of detectives they really should have thought about the fact that Bruce traveled the entire world, he knows ancient languages and the words that world in other galaxies use, if he could speak Martian then he would have learned it by now, he still does know that part that he’s able to learn.

Idk I just need more of Bruce being skilled at SO many things while his kids are like “oh yeah Bruce? He’s good but I could defeat him easily” and Bruce just so proud of his babies when they do ANYTHING.

Bonus:

Tim made a plan to neutralize Superman at some point, it wasn’t as good as Bruce’s but he replaced it so fast. When he later uses it to take down mind controlled or something Supes Red Robin is watching.

Nobody notices that Batman whispers something to Superman before he goes deathly pale and acts like the plan is working so well he immediately gets defeated. As for what Batman said to him? It was basically ‘Clark(they aren’t supposed to know identities here btw) my kid made this plan and I swear to every mortal and immortal force that if you don’t take the fall right now you will regret it for the rest of your life” and Batman was usually scary but this was like, God will cower before him terrifying and it scared evil Superman so much he went along with it.

Res Robin was smiling so brightly that later Clark honestly couldn’t be mad at the Bat.

Edit: I forgot to add this but unbeknownst to EVERYONE (including Alfred somehow) Bruce can and will stay awake longer then Tim and his drinks are somehow worse in terms of caffeination. The difference is that on the fourteenth day with no sleep everyone thinks it’s only been three even though he is Vividly hallucinating. The ability to hide his lack of sleep for the first week and a half leads them to believe he’s actually the worst at staying up since on what they think is his fourth day of no sleep (it’s his seventeenth) he’s talking to an apparently very vivid hallucination of Alfred the Cat in a suit and a Tiger named Tawny(he had met the tiger earlier that week) and having a civilized conversation with them

[daisybell-on-a-carousel]

Still very wild to me when people try to gotcha Jason with the whole "if you can kill other people for being evil why can't they kill you" when jason is like. One of the most passively suicidal characters I've ever seen. What if man

[asavt]

Into the confessionary a little spider walked

Mind not quite there

Quite lost

Memories scrambled around, confused

Pain flaring up, things that shouldn't have been said out

Siblings falling apart

Guilt over forgotten acts

[dykedvonte]

Something something perhaps the reason Curly lacks a truly undamaged ID where his face is visible is to represent how much damage Jimmy had already affected on him throughout their relationship and the way Curly obscured part of who he is and what he stood to unintentionally cater to this toxic influence in his life.

[fear-no-mort]

evil rick is so good because hes the first and best example of how just cringe and melodramatic evil morty is in the way he acts while being controlled by him. the slow clap, the like fake orchestra director thing he does when hes talking about the symphony of morties, the ‘we’re not so different you and i’ lines, the cut-throat hand gesture he does when saying hes gonna kill rick. u get what i mean all of that is evil morty doing that except it’s him replicating the behaviour of a rick except all of that stuff is kinda just how he is anyway. i personally think he enjoyed it a lot he had fun with it

[bigmfrat]

how funny would it be if The Emperor made up the whole Stelmane thing just to scare you because you called him a freak and her stroke had nothing to do with him, it was just a regular mundane stroke. This is my truth.

[dxxtruction]

Louis' "You're boring!" Could mean so many things, but I think what's most apparent about that line is that Armand takes no initiative just for himself. He's not really anybody, because he never goes out and finds himself or gets attached to anyone but Louis. Without Louis as his guide he's literally just sitting on a couch picking lint! That's the thing.

He orbits constantly around what would make Louis happy, and never really fully going what would make me happy? Ultimately that drive to please Louis is what drives him to torturing Daniel, not so much that he'd care to just do it. Ultimately, not giving proper care to Louis is just a way to make sure Louis knows he has to orbit around him as well, with shoving Lestat onto him just that other nail on the coffin. So, even if he fails to figure out how to make Louis happy with him, he still knows what Armand is good for, and better than.

That dependency is what drives Armand's abuse. It really just comes down to that. Armand doesn't even realize how suffocated he is by his own dependency. This is just how life is to him. (It shouldn't be lost either that dependency is a theme considering this episode also deals with addiction).

Daniel's fascinating because he's just so driven to be somebody. He's largely independent, he seeks things because he wants them. It's his drug to poke and prod at all the things that he shouldn't. Daniel's exciting because he lets Louis in to something different, lets him in to all this potential in another person that he can also do the same with for himself. It's a real connection. A two way street. It's easy to tell how Armand can be smothering then because he's never introducing him to anything really new, and most the ways both of them connect are all painful and traumatic. It's never just fun because there's always that layer of that pain. Fun died with Claudia.

50 years on they've gotten to a lot better place, both of them, but it's still that same shit. No seriously, "How is this any different from last time, Louis?"

Well... Because Armand's going to be, at the very least, making one [1] decision only for himself - and that's to hold power over Daniel's life. Fucking sick foreshadowing.

They aren't driving each other to the brink anymore but "The vampire is bored" STILL. Maybe it's even worse, despite being in better places, because Louis' sort of just been defeated by it. (I mean, can he even really leave this either?). He's accepting the dependancy cause he kind of has to. He'd literally ended up letting all the enjoyment be up where he can't reach [The book shelves]. Armand so desperately wants Louis happiness but what really ends up happening is that Louis ends up having to give Armand all his own. He's got no one or anything else to get it from. But like an iPad and an over the top eating ritual. Two extremes of what's just more lint picking.

This whole relationship is one I find just tragic inside and out. You have to just pity it, really. There's ways in which you can find yourself feeling bad for both of them. But you can only really be mad at Armand for any of it. Armand, who isn't even 'free' in any sense, having so little concept of his own independence, but is at the same time so controlling over other's. It's a tragic cycle. It's an infuriating one.

Louis at least has the mind to know when enough is enough. If just needing that extra push to get there. Armand's too scared of it being over to even try.

[insomnya777]

now that we don't talk by taylor swift is so jimmy to tango during the hermitpires crossover

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

At your side [End of Season 2]

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[belliesandburps]

Interactive - Favorite Burp Scenario

I need something to take my mind off the fact that we are home to the dumbest, most bigoted fucking assholes on this planet, and I feel like a lot of you probably feel the same way right now. So, how about another interactive game? Send me character requests via my askbox here and I will respond with my favorite burp scenario to imagine for them. (Note, ideally, keep it to characters I know or that you think I may know)

[seventeendeer]

hrrr I Saw the TV Glow is still rolling around in the back of my mind. it's hitting me somewhat belatedly that what seemingly starts as mainly an identity story turns out - toward the final act - to also be a love story. two queer kids finding each other (again). the bond they forge (have always had). the feelings that start to grow (were always there) despite the lie they're living. one trying to save the other, and failing. the frail hope at the end that maybe what they had mattered after all, even if they never see each other again. maybe because they knew each other, someday things will be better.

idk. so much of the story feels so lonely. they're awkward with each other at first and they don't really "get" each other and they're absent from each other's lives for long periods and they don't have anyone else. but it's all a lie - they were best friends, they knew each other better than anyone, they are who they are because they knew each other, they were not alone. no matter how bleak the setting is, this fake world can't obscure the truth. they'll never forget each other. it will always have happened, it will always have mattered.

it's so hard to put into words but Owen/Isabel and Maddy/Tara make me so crazy, the way everything in the world works to drive them apart and yet not even losing their memories can destroy the connection between them. and it's not enough to prevent the world from tearing them apart but maybe it's enough to save their lives

queer love portrayed not as supernaturally resilient or invincible (god knows it isn't), but as a precious fragile thing that can and will grow back over and over in some form no matter what ...

[possamble]

do you have any particular thoughts regarding marcille being a half-elf? its interesting to me considering the fact that she seems self-conscious about being a half-elf, but denies it when its brought up

i remember marcille looking visibly uncomfortable over laios simply asking her how old she is, which i think the only reason she might feel nervous about this is because it might reveal her as a half-elf to him.

she's never corrected anybody whose called her an elf either.

never mind the circumstances of the reveal, in which thistle goes on about how half-elves are inferior and accusing her of wanting to become full blooded elf, she seemed particularly upset like he struck a nerve-

i wish the half-elf thing was built upon more. also, underrated marcille line:

okay so i revisited this sequence just to make sure I could back myself up and it's just... man. there's a lot going on.

the first reaction we get from Marcille is this huge panel that takes up half of the page

she is viscerally affected. flushing to the tips of her ears with the intensity of it. and we see it again, a few pages later

so it might seem like she's embarrassed about it and lying to herself, but... I really think it's just that Thistle is accidentally hitting sore spots. If you really look at what he says to get these reactions

"you'll live out your entire life [...] and die that way too"

"a hundred years from now, nobody will be there"

Hear me out. I think, if he stuck to harping on about her inferiority without bringing up how terrifyingly long-lived she is, she wouldn't have been as bothered. But right now, Thistle is accidentally hitting all the marks on Marcille's deepest fears-- and this is after the Winged Lion promised her that her dreams could come true in an extremely vulnerable moment, so it also hits her slightly guilty conscience as well.

I do truly believe that Marcille isn't bothered about being a half-elf the way that people assume she'd be bothered by it. To her, the biggest problem with being a half-elf is that it's isolating.

On one hand, it's not hard to imagine why she'd distance herself from elves in the west. A lot of them can clock her as a half-elf on sight, unlike other races, and therefore she's always branded with this weird stigma of being Othered -- I would even say that she considers herself lucky for being born outside of elven culture instead of having to grow up in it. I mean, just... look at the way elves talk about her.

Skipping past the uncomfortable implication of what 'not tolerating the existence' of half-elves would actually entail, this is incredibly fucking annoying. You can see why she wouldn't want to be around elves much. You see a lot of Marcille reacting badly here, but honestly, almost all of it can be attributed to her freaking out that her bluff completely failed. She's honestly more paying attention to Izutsumi's footsteps and trying to coordinate an opportunity to escape.

And in the end, you see her built-up frustration at being asked if she wants to be a full-blooded elf like 2-3 times in a row.

Yeah, yeah, "the lady doth protest too much," and all. But we know Marcille. We know that she's a lot more embarrassed and horrendously unconvincing when she's being prodded about something she's actually self-conscious about.

Moving onto the flipside of things, it might seem weird that she "pretends" to be a full elf around other races, but it's not really that strange if you think about it. Again, people are weird about her being infertile or whatever, and a lots of them don't even know much about what sets half-elves apart from everyone else. I mean, look at how uncomfortable Laios is just asking her about it

and look at how exasperated and resigned she looks

And like... she's right. Where would that come up in normal conversation? Why would she go out of her way to tell them? She's functionally a normal elf to other races anyway -- got the ears, the abnormally long "childhood", and the huge mana capacity. Unless it's directly relevant or important for people to know, I don't think it's all that strange or indicative of insecurity that she prefers not to bother with it.

(This combined with her sense of being an "outsider" to elf culture also explains why she thinks elf superiority is embarrassing. She sees the way elves treat short-lived races from the "outsider" perspective nonetheless, and thinks it's obnoxious; especially more so because she usually has to play the elf around short-lived races and deal with the reputation of arrogance that elves have built up.)

The sad thing is, this all means that... she doesn't actually fit in anywhere. She doesn't like going out West much because of how elves treat her. But she's also an outsider in the continents she was born in, treated like this exotic long-lived alien choosing to live among short-lived races for some reason. She is always an outsider, the Other, no matter where she goes. Add in the fact that she'll live longer than literally anyone she knows, and it's honestly kind of heartbreaking.

And I think that's the crux of it. Marcille really doesn't act like she's at all self-conscious about being a half-elf because of any feelings of inferiority or being half-made or whatever. She considers herself a perfectly legitimate being and might even, in some ways, consider herself superior to normal elves because she's not blind with elf supremacy or whatever. (And whatever "elven biases" she displays, all of them are born more out of the fact that she's kind of bad at conceptualizing how other races age and mature compared to herself, not that she actually considers herself better or more mature simply for being an elf.)

I think that whatever self-consciousness Marcille has about being a half-elf is, instead, related to terror and loneliness. The reminder that it ensures she'll never truly belong anywhere for the rest of her very long life. The reminder that, in truth, even she's not actually sure how old she is by other races' standards (hence the discomfort when asked how old she is). She doesn't want to not be a half elf, or be a full elf or full tall-man-- in her ideal world, she's still a half-elf. She just gets to live out her life at the same pace with the people she loves and doesn't have to say goodbye again and again and again until she dies.

and one last very important panel, right after Mithrun tells her that all her desires would be devoured

In her ideal world, she's still a half-elf and reality magically starts marching at her pace. But failing that, the second best thing is that she's still a half-elf-- but one who is able to accept reality and let go of her fear.

(But the rest of the story pans out the way it does because, to Marcille, taking reality apart and reshaping it was less scary than simply and fully reconciling with it.)