#ran s1

[arcanegifs]

Arcane Gif Requests: @softbeebee ↳ "You wanna mess around? They gonna take you down, down, down Wanna slide and turn Such a lovely way to burn, burn, burn"

[finleycannotdraw]

4. Historic Time ~ won’t you stay with me, my darling, when my walls start burning down? (x)

I have so many thoughts about Aziraphale and the Library of Alexandria (which, as a friend explained, should actually be translated to Alexandrea). I definitely think he was there when it burned. I also think it could’ve been the first time (one of the only times) Crowley touched him without thinking, and maybe one of the reasons he decided to run a bookshop! I am unwell. Aziraphale would’ve been devastated when that library burned.

[joifee]

The wizard, the princess, the elven warrior

[thesherrinfordfacility]

so @theeminentlyimpractical and i were yodelling at each other in the DMs last night talking about general time-fuckery stuff in s2 and trying to riddle it all out, and i mentioned that i had noticed something that only now seems obvious from the s1 scriptbook (and im sure that someone pointed it out in 2019 but im wondering how relevant it still is):

everything is running late.

working backwards chronologically in s1, we have when newt arrives at jasmine cottage:

unfortunately the line isn't in the show, but in the interest of pooling all resources, the scriptbook says the following:

NEWT - I swerved to avoid Tibetans in the road. At least, I think I did. I've probably gone mad.

ANATHEMA - If you have, noone's going to notice. You're twenty minutes late.

we then know that crowley was late for arriving to collect the antichrist:

which the scriptbook doesn't elaborate on/give a timeframe, and may be extraneous to the previous and next example, but the antichrist is reportedly part of the Great Plan, so im including it for the moment.

but the kicker is agnes nutter, right?:

a precise and accurate prophetess who doesn't foresee that pulsifer would arrive late to execute her? how?

so when it came down to it, i started to wonder where something might have happened that has shunted the timeline along, between 10-20 minutes... maybe something in eden? but no - laure cracked it:

GOD - Archbishop James Ussher claimed that the Heaven and the Earth were created on Sunday the 21st of October, 4004 BC, at 9:00 a.m. This too was incorrect. By almost a quarter of an hour. It was created at 9:13 in the morning, which was correct.

now. all of the times don't match up completely, but the general sense is that the world may be running a little behind schedule, compared to what it should be - ie. the timeline that agnes predicted, and ussher/his team calculated.

we know that adam reset everything at the end of s1, but:

given that he's not omniscient, would he know that the world is 15 mins behind schedule (and therefore, when s2 starts, are we still running late)? probably not, so does he revert things back but keeps the world on the original clock, so to speak?

alternatively, did he reset the clock, and is the universe that we see in s2 actually on the correct time?

this might not mean much, if anything at all (see: it's just all for The Bit), in the grand scheme of things... but im now starting to wonder if it does. because what would have happened if everything had run on time? because maybe it's not so much thinking about individual events, and how they would have played out otherwise if the world had been on the 'correct' timeline all along, but maybe just the sheer possibility that there is an 'alternate reality' in which those 10-20 minutes meant things played out very differently?

ive talked about the chair (x), and ive talked about the sideburns (x), and ive talked about how crowley somehow seems to be existing at a different time to everything else around him (alternatively - whickber street itself is running in a different... reality? timeline?), as well as the random moments where time seems to disappear entirely/the clock swaps its hands around in ep6 (x). about crowley's comment about it being "too late", and how he seems to act slightly odd just before aziraphale tells him about the metatron's offer (x)... but is it all somehow interconnected? and connected to the 13-minute delay?

and if it is... what caused it? what might have delayed god by 13 minutes, or what might have gone wrong to cause the delay, that has then had a hypothetical knock-on effect, whether it be because adam did fix it, or didn't fix it?

[chirpsythismorning]

The way fans on the st sub are almost all in agreement Nancy ending up with neither Jon nor Steve wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, and how they can even come up with a sleuth of reasons as to why, honestly pretty valid and fair reasons, but then are absolutely gobsmacked when fans merely speculate something along those lines for El is, quite something.

[loisfreakinglane]

DOLLHOUSE // 2.03 “Belle Chose”

[llumimoon]

Did NOT have time to draw Henry birthday art today so instead take this wip of Hen and Mercedes first meeting in an AU of mine <3 tehe

[neonvqmpire]

"...to preserve the very comfortable life they've carved out for themselves." (david while filming s1)

vs

"...the precious, peaceful, fragile existence that I have carved out for myself here."

"I thought we carved it out for ourselves !"

"So did I !" (aziracrow in s2)

[arcsin27]

accidentally discovered greenflower. i like this. i like this a lot.

[iveneverseenthesebowlsbefore]

We should talk more about how Fang says fingies

[sightkeeper]

hey! first off, js wanna say that i LOVE your art and style, and having just binged chosen faces for the first time, I am. smitten.

and so I had to ask you this question- feel free to ignore it if it somehow has spoilers - but ik that you don't plan to cover s2 apart from short scenes that spark your interest, but do you think your aziraphale would've made the same... decision that he made in canon? towards the end?

also can he take metatron in a fight :D pls say yes :D

Oh man oh man, this one really made me think! I don't think answering this is spoilers in any way, as we already know I'm following S1 canon (even if you don't know what changes to events I've yet to make). So the question is whether or not Chosen Face!Aziraphale would have accepted the Metatron's offer, and tried to convince Crowley to join him and become an angel again. Granted, as of now, we do not know the full story of why TV Aziraphale reacted the way he did. We didn't even get to truly see the conversation he had with the Metatron on the offer, only what he tells Crowley. And I don't trust him to be a reliable narrator. Let alone that we never see him say 'yes'. He just says 'I don't know what to say.'

There's a lot of really interesting theories about the new season and why characters act the way they do, but for the purpose of this ask I'm going to go with the assumption that everything we saw on screen is accurate, without anything happening in the background or death threats or spiked coffees to explain their actions. And to this end, I'm going to bring up these past two responses to Q&As:

Because I started this comic pre-S2, I have their very first meeting being on the wall of Eden. CF!Aziraphale never met angel Crowley. He has no assumptions of how happy Crowley was prior to Falling.

TV!Aziraphale is complex and fallible, which is why I love him, but he also has shown that when faced with the ultimatum of running or facing the threat, he'd sacrifice his own happiness for what he felt was right (the bandstand). The end of S2E6 felt much the same to me in this. The Metatron is obviously manipulative, and Aziraphale has a lot more growing to do (as does Crowley, whose response was again to run off together), but at his core Aziraphale wants to do good. It's just whose definition of 'good' and to what end that he wibbles over. Would CF!Aziraphale react the same? Well, kinda no, but also unfortunately yes. I'm so sorry. I don't think the setup could have been the same. CF!Aziraphale doesn't harbor any notion of Heaven being purely good, and hasn't for a good while. But he does want to believe that God has a plan, and that if he can figure out that plan, he can win the game. By this I mean, Aziraphale's initial goals were to be on the "right/winning" side of the game, so he joined the angels as a tactical advantage. But as he grew to love earth and genuinely wanting to be kind, winning the game meant less of being a "victor", and more "If I figure out the game plan, I can subvert it if need be." He doesn't know what the plan is. But he does think the Metatron would know. So an opportunity to infiltrate their ranks and be able to make real structural changes that wouldn't break reality? Yeah, I could see him taking it. And since giving Crowley the holy water, Aziraphale has trusted Crowley to keep himself safe even when he's not around.

howling screaming slashing at the walls

As for whether or not he'd still present the question to Crowley, I think he would (but without the implication of how nice it was back then). He'd present the option only because it is an option, and he wouldn't want to take away Crowley's ability to choose that fate for himself. After all, he chose to be an angel and found a home in that identity. He'd want to offer Crowley that same courtesy, if that's actually what he wanted.

He doesn't want to control Crowley and make decisions for him. And if Crowley's decision means they have to separate for a time until he can figure out The Plan? He'll be heartbroken but he'll accept it.

Okay but the real answer you're looking for: could CF!Aziraphale take on the Metatron and win?

YOU FUCKIN' BETCHA THAT FLOATING HEAD IS GOING DOWN

[kyouka-supremacy]

I'm done cooking

[jonathanbyersphd]

I h8 u poorly written s3 car fight

[thedndgoblinwholivesinyourwalls]

what if- what i get the kiddads and make them meet with my ocs. wouldn’t that be funny.

[animecreator3000]

Every time I rewatch some episode of Boueibu HK I wonder again how the staff even planned this season. Like. Almost nothing meaningful happens with the characters

TLDR the characters with the most developement in HK are the monsters

Kyoutarou is there as a complete contrast to Yumoto while keeping the battle speeches so his characterization doesn't make much sense. Nanao is mere fujoshi bait. Taiju and Taishi have random bits of dialogue that hint at possible arcs for s2 but not enough to tell us what it really is. Maasa has an unfinished arc in his episode, where supposedly he's putting fatty butter in his cookies to make everyone else overweight because he resents Ichiro not defending him when they were little, but then his friends tell him it's fine and then he can move on??? This would work with Ichiro's theme of not wanting to be immature or dense anymore, except they only ever used this theme as a gag (misunderstanding the meaning of whatever the others have said) or to straight up humilliate him (ep4) and continue treating him like a stupid baby. At the end of the season Maasa and him have made peace somehow and that's it. Ata gets in my opinion the closest thing to a complete arc, even if it's just staring angrily at Kyoutarou for ten episodes, then explaining his problem while fighting him and finally getting his apology and reconcilliation. At least it's something. And poor Ryouma is just there to be the butt of a few jokes about how he lets Nanao and Kyoutarou use him, be in a couple of cute shippy scenes, and also for Ata to completely dismiss him from the flashbacks to the point where if they had first met in high school nothing would've changed.

The relationships barely have developement either. Love had anime episodes and manga chapters dedicated to the different close friendships solving their conflicts and becoming closer. There were also many instances of seeing how close the Hakone brothers-defense club and Beppu brothers' relationships were, and even though they didn't have any conflict between themselves, they made them strong sides for the final fight. Yumoto didn't get a character arc but through the entire anime he was revealed to be strong, considerate, forgiving and mature, willing to kindly befriend the Beppu twins for his brother but not let them walk all over him; contrary to how he was presented in the first episodes, like a stereotypical magical girl protagonist. Anyway in HK there's no meaningful conflict between any of them besides Kyoutarou and Ata. Taishi and Ichiro argue constantly but don't show to genuinely like each other after all like IoRyuu or EnAtsu did. Ichiro and Maasa never make any progress to be together again, Maasa hints once at liking Taishi and nothing comes from it, and Nanao and Taiju have the most artificial friendship in the cast that I just do not understand. They just ran an ice cream shop once with again unexplained success and make sassy remarks at each other ever since. And I guess Karurusu and Furanui had a bit of developement thanks to Kyou and Ata in ep12. Idk about the aliens, this time it's like they didn't do it completely well but also not as bad as with the rest of the cast. Maybe bc they didn't appear as much as the humans in most of the episodes

I'm realizing now that a few of these complaints are related to Nanao acting weird

Idk where to put this but I'd like to point out Kinshiro's principles of halting the fight with the Battle Lovers as soon as he finds out that the s1 conflict was set up for a reality show and actively defending them from an attack because they're Binan students, despite still not having received his apology from Atsushi. Ata might've done the same if the HK finale's events had gone in the same order (travelling to Honyalaland to fight Wao, then Kyoutarou apologizing to Ata), but he doesn't feel as a character as deep as Kinshiro in that sense bc they didn't really show him to be in other ways.

Love feels more like an actual group of people while HK feels like they were filling in friendship group roles or something

[minakoaiinos]

The end credits of this season have such a Ciel in Wonderland thing going on where Ciel has to face the bad things he's done to people and doing so casts him adrift and he has to wonder who is still going to care about him after all of that and the answer is Sebastian every time. And it's interesting Sebastian is always who he is the most worried about still liking him in the end bc Sebastian is both the person that knows the full extent of who Ciel is and what he's done and Sebastian is the very person who has been enabling Ciel the whole time.