#second chances and second choices

[di-42]

As we all know, any excuse is good to re-promote your fiction, but a recent post by @alphacentaurinebula prompted me to go back to this passage from my Second Chances And Second Choices. That's what I think Good Omens is all about (for Crowley and Aziraphale, but for the characters too. And for us.):

He forced himself to look at the angel and…

Oh, look at him. He’s gorgeous.

A more beautiful, more soothing view than any star would ever be.

Who was he kidding before? There would never come a time when he wouldn't go back to Aziraphale. The pull the angel had on him was stronger than the gravitational field they were now at the very centre of. He was bound by it. He couldn't not go back to him.

You’re kidding yourself again, the voice in his head was saying as he kept looking at the comforting smiling presence to his right.

What a pathetic excuse for the demon who had unwrapped the gift of free will for the humans.

Crowley wasn’t bound to gravitate around Aziraphale by any force. There was no physical, divine or occult law at play here.

He didn't have to go back to Aziraphale over and over again.

He chose to. He had chosen Aziraphale above anything else, above his own safety, 6000 years ago and he would keep choosing him for the next 6 million years and more.

Every single time.

He hadn’t been created this way. It was his choosing.

He blinked back the tears gathering in his eyes at the thought that all he’d ever wanted was for Aziraphale to choose him back.

[fuckyeahgoodomensfanfic]

Good Omens Fic Rec: Second chances and second choices

After the (failed) second coming, Crowley and Aziraphale have to face the biggest fear of all: talk to each other.

Length: 25,341 words

AO3 Rating: Teen and Up

Best for: Safe in Public, Light Angst

Triggers: None

Read it here, fic by Melquiadesdecarabas42

*Minor Spoilers* I really need to stop reading fic at work in between customers. This was my morning read today and it hurt to have to stop and walk away from this one. There is a line in here that I won't spoil, a really poor choice of words from Aziraphale, that shook me to my core and then I had to help an old lady and the whole time all I could think of was this fic and that line over and over again going what the fuck.

So where we start off here is interesting. It's after the immediate resolution of The Second Coming, and we get hints and the shape of things but not all the details. But things aren't actually over. There's still the Metatron to deal with, and explanations to be given. This story plays with the theory that Aziraphale was lying in the Final 15 to save Crowley, that he knew what was at stake all along. I don't have any headcanons on that myself, so I like to explore all the different versions available and this one was definitely compelling. I thought the plot here was very thrilling and clever, we move through events pretty quickly but that wasn't a negative for me. I loved seeing a grown up group of The Them and the return of Anathema.

There's so many misunderstandings and miscommunications that they still need to work through. They're very timid with each other, trying to mind the boundaries that they assume the other has put up. And those walls fall apart in an incredibly beautiful way. While attending a concert of Maggie's friends, they hear a song that could only be about them, and they can no longer hold their feelings back. The original lyrics were gorgeous. I would love to hear that played. That scene was the highlight of this story for me.

Safe in public, and a really interesting and lovely take on what could happen post s2!

Read it here, fic by Melquiadesdecarabas42

[grooviestguru]

just IMAGINE neil as full on captain once dan graduates. this little feral terror is the one who has to go out and shake hands, do the coin toss, is primarily responsible with the press.... 

like, imagine neil is so mad at some other captain for talking shit about the foxes, or for a dirty play in a previous game, and he goes out there to give a Steel Grip Of Impending Doom so the other captain KNOWS to be very, very afraid of this smol striker with an unsettling smile

[hellcifrogs]

AU where Naruto has to adopt skaura into the uzumaki clan due to political nonsense. She finds out that the uzumaki have a library and house in konoha, and the village gets TWO seal using pranksters unleashing hilarious vengeance upon those who were mean to naruto! Also, Naruto and Sakura as siblings!

I see the words "pranksters", "Naruto" and "Sakura" and my brain immediately goes "PARTNERS IN CRIME"!

[sunshinechay]

Sometimes, forgiveness is more for yourself than the other person. It is needed to move on and move forward, whether that person is involved in your life after that or not.

Joe and Ming choosing to forgive Tong and Ming’s father does not negate what they did or what they may do in the future. They chose to forgive them for themselves. They need to move on and they know the best way to go that is to simply forgive them.

The story of Ming and Joe was always meant to be about forgiveness and second chances. Joe forgave Ming for what he did. This time both Ming and Joe are giving it to Tong and Ming’s father in order to give them what Joe gave Ming, an opportunity to do better. Will it work? Who knows. They might change for the better, they might not. Joe and Ming are willing to give everyone the chance to find out.

Tong still deserved to get pushed in the pool though. I wish someone had.

[lab-gr0wn-lambs]

The monarchy jokes are funny, but idk what y'all actually expect to happen when the King dies. We just get another one. They don't actually have any real political power, they're just overpaid shitass mascots. Y'all gotta direct some of this energy at Rishi Sunak

[nothazellevesque]

there is something so extremely tragic about Thalia Grace. She was a child looking after her baby brother. just a nine year old little girl with a two year old boy clutching onto her sleeve while she tried desperately to protect him from their cruel world and their mother. She looks away from that little blonde boy for just one moment, and then he’s gone forever. Dead. She runs away from home. She meets another blonde boy. An older one. His eyes aren’t quite as blue as Jason’s, but he still reminds her of what her brother might’ve been if he’d only gotten the chance to grow old. they find another child in need of protection. A little girl with blonde curls like her mother’s. And this time is going to be different. This time Thalia won’t fail. This child will be safe. They will all be safe.

She is twelve years old when she dies alone on a hill to protect annabeth and luke. the closest thing that she had left to a family. I wonder if she thought of Jason as she lay there. I wonder if she saw her friends make it to safety as she fell. I wonder if she thought of home, wherever that was. A picnic in the forest with Jason? A safe house with Annabeth and Luke and Grover? An empty mansion in Pasadena? it doesn’t matter. because her body becomes a monument. In death, she can finally be the protector that she’d always tried to be. She’s a symbol of safety now, not a lost, scared little girl who was condemned to a life of hardship because of who her father was.

Except it’s not the end. Thalia comes back. Everything’s different now. The little girl that she once raised is now older than Thalia ever got the chance to be. Luke is gone. Thalia closed her eyes for the final time as a twelve year old girl and woke up a fifteen year old, suddenly the star of a prophecy that she’d never gotten the chance to learn about. To the campers, she’s still the tree on the hill, still that symbol of safety and hope. To Luke and his army, she’s a symbol of the failures of the gods. There is no space for Thalia Grace the person. She is now the figurehead of a war that she never wanted to fight, the mascot for a side that she’d never agreed to join, and the closest people in the world to her are total strangers now. and through it all, the clock keeps moving forward. She’s running out of time. There are at most four months between when she comes back and when the prophecy is scheduled to kick in. She has no time to breathe, no time to adjust, she’s just thrown back into the fight.

And then she chooses immortality. She’d never wanted to be the prophecy child. She’d never wanted any of this. All she’d wanted was to protect. All she’d wanted was safety. She’d lost everything. Jason was dead. Annabeth had grown up without her. Luke was someone that she didn’t recognize anymore. So she chooses to remove herself from the story. She is an eternal protector now, only one day from sixteen for the rest of her days. She watches from the sidelines as her friends grow up and move on without her. At least this time, she can be conscious through it.

Luke dies. She doesn’t get to say goodbye. She doesn’t get to see those blue eyes close for the last time. Another blonde haired blue eyed boy has been ripped away from her. Annabeth is sixteen now. She’s found love, friends, a place to belong. And Thalia is no longer a part of it. So she moves on and focuses on her duties as a huntress.

Jason is alive. Her first failure was all part of some greater plan. She’d never failed him at all. He was safe. He was her age now, but he was safe. He didn’t remember her, really, but that was okay, because he was alive and they had time to fix things. Except they don’t. Because he dies. She’d barely gotten him back before she loses him for good. The boy that she’d once held on her hip, the baby who drove her away from her mother, towards Luke and Annabeth and becoming more of a figurehead than a person, he’s gone. Neither of her blond boys got the chance to grow old. And Thalia is right back where she started: a tree on a hill, standing forever still while the world moves on around her.

[amyriver]

i have this headcanon that the doctor didn’t even try to find melody, because he knew finding her meant sacrificing river. sort of like the old amy/young amy problem in “the girl who waited”, but this time he chose the older version

for a better headcanon i like to believe he asked river what she wanted, and she told him not to find her. because at least then it’s her choice

[macksting]

I appreciate that, in a story full of redemptions and forgiveness and second chances, Shadow Weaver couldn't even do a noble self-sacrifice without being an abusive piece of shit one last time.

[di-42]

What better time to re-promote your old fictions than when you are trying to find the inspiration to write a chapter for your WIP?

My first baby. Some things work, some a bit less, but it will be always be my first baby. Second Chances And Second Choices in which the second coming has failed and Aziraphale is hoping this is the beginning of his life with Crowley. But Crowley seems to be of a different opinion. That is, until old enemies turn up at Aziraphale's door. Once the world is safe again, what happens next? Can Crowley and Aziraphale reconnect? This is just one of the many ways to get them back together. Rated teen, sorry folks!

In Vino Ludus, silly, lighthearted one-shot that was much fun to write and allowed me to play with fanon Crowley. It's the year 2030. Crowley comes to the bookshop drunk. An as of yet canon divergent fluffy night in the life of an angel and a demon. Rated E.

[lochlot-moved]

ur dad ain’t got no nose no more

[drabbles-of-writing]

We may not have gotten Eda seeing Raine possessed by Belos, but can you imagine her hearing about it after the fact? 

Eda has no idea why Raine was even with Belos going full kaiju in the first place. Last she recalls, they were off in a comatose puppet state guarding the cell she was in. Then everyone almost dies, Luz briefly dies for real, and suddenly Raine is there looking like they’re awaiting to get nommed on by a facehugger. They also now have scars that make them look like a theater kid who put on way too much mascara before bawling their eyes out. There is literally no time to ask, the world is too busy dying.

Then the world isn’t dying, and there’s time to ask. Raine, why are you scarred and missing an earring? I left you for like five minutes. What the hell happened? To which Raine now has the very complicated duty of deciding if they a) want to tell an already emotionally exhausted Eda some news she is really not going to like and b) want to tell her right here right now or if it’s worth it to risk Eda worrying herself sick by telling her they’ll explain when no one else is around.

Either way, Raine is about to become monsterfucker part 2 electric boogaloo when they realize there is, in fact, a second very scary bird form

[sleeptokenpuppy]

i love that a number of us are ready to sprint across the planet to make sure iii's hair isnt gonna fry completely off, we really are a hivemind arent we

[visenyaism]

Sorry not to be insane but the Renly post got me thinking and ik everyone has already beat to death the Robert and Rhaegar parallels and it's only half cooked in my brain rn however I think the Viserys and Dany dynamic parallels to Stannis and Renly are soooo insane actually. When for so long the two younger siblings have nothing to rely on but each other and they idolize but also resent the idea of their older brother in their head and also like Robert dying without true heirs thrusting Stannis back into the role of heir he hadn't had in years and is similar in my head to Viserys being thrust into being the heir after the war bc his brothers kids are killed. Baratheons fucked up dynamics under explored fr fr.

hmmmmm so i think they definitely have the idea of being a child/teenager and suddenly having to raise your little sibling in common but I think they’re sort of operating on two different character foil binaries:

Stannis around they both went through this period of seige and starvation where Renly only had Stannis and then they both responded to that differently. Stannis has his whole thing about discipline and self deprivation, whereas renly dealt with it by leaning really hard into excess and attention-seeking.  the love and power that they have is conditional on Roberts love, but the big problem for them is just that it’s unequal between them?

like in contrast the thing that viserys and daenerys are trying to cope with is not having ANY power or privilege because it was forcibly taken from them when they were ousted. Viserys copes with this by leaning into his own misrembered family history and the targaryen self-mythologization as dragons and superior beings, because he cannot give up the idea that he is destined to be king and everyone will defer him one day and then they’ll all be sorry. Daenerys copes with a childhood of not having any power or status by trying to elevate the powerless and eliminate systemic injustices once she GETS a ton of power.

Most important takeaway for me is that Stannis uses his magical shadow child to kill Renly in this act of pride and sense of duty winning out over love whereas Daenerys names, her magical dragon child after her big brother to carry on his memory in what’s very clearly an act of forgiveness.

[majorasnightmare]

thinking about isobel and ketheric, and my durge and ketheric, and isobel and my durge

like ketheric whos entire personality is centered around being a failed father, dirge who lives solely and exclusively for a father who does not love him, isobel being horribly violated for the sake of fatherly love in the name of a person shell never be again like excuse me this trio of people makes me go insane

ketheric and dirge like!! zealot recognizes zealot, ketheric knows what its like to be devoted wholeheartedly to a god who will discard you and thats explicitly why he has a businesslike relationship with myrkul, who KNOWSSS ketherics heart isnt in it but doesnt care, ketheric who never fully believed in the absolute plan but carried it out nonetheless, ketheric who nonsensically traded the death of the world for his daughters life, who in reality most likely traded his afterlife for isobels life, knowingly condemning himself to never see melodia again, to an eternity of torture at myrkuls hands, just so isobel can breathe again. dirge knowing with perfect clarity his own father would never do that for him. ketheric knowing that kind of hopeless devotion and willful blind ignorance leads to a kind of iron will that makes dirge genuinely dangerous but pitying the poor fool nonetheless because despite dirges clear intelligence and skill, despite his overwhelmingly obvious power, hes shackled to a self destructive idiot whod bite off his own arm just to spite the world who couldnt give a single fuck about dirges mental state or how that affects achieving bhaals OWN goals and fulfilling his OWN desires, because ketheric understands perfectly well a god will be stupid and selfish first and reasonable and measured second. dirge hating ketheric not just for being a wishywashy traitor who cant settle on something to be devoted to, but because ketheric has the shit figured out. its a zero sum game. theres no winning, only different types of losers, and embracing that truth means acknowledging his entire life has been a pointless self destructive waste that will never give him the satisfaction and actualization dirge craves, so its easier and more stable to just interpret ketheric as a coward. except hes going to kill himself for isobel. going to go through hell for her. theres a level of devotion and love and care there that dirge has only experienced once in his life and the memory of it is enough to drive him to madness, but despite it all ketheric IS competent. is level and measured and powerful and capable of looking past his own self interest to the far horizon of victory, is tactical and clever and willing to wade into the fray. so dirge hates, and admires, and envies, and pities, and reflexively seeks out and avoids ketheric in equal measure. wants to carve him up until he finally breaks, screaming for a god that wont hear him as just rewards for his insolence (because dirges loyalty will SURELY be rewarded, loyalty to his god and to his father, certainly), cant stand the idea of working alongside anyone else, hates being around him but hates doing things without him, falling into old habits of depravity just to get away from the cacophany of emotion and the introspection it tries to trigger.

and then ketheric is doing all of this for someone who doesnt really exist. the isobel he wants to revive isnt real. its a version of her thats stripped hollow of the things that make her, HER. he wants an isobel that doesnt love aylin, he wants an isobel that is content to remain in place and be protected by him, where he was the center of her world. he wants an isobel that hasnt existed for over a century. he wants an isobel like he remembers thinking of the days before melodia died. its why despite everything he gives up for her, if ketheric gets his hands on isobel he tadpoles her. the tadpoles are just a convenient tool for cutting away the unnecessary parts of a person, things they dont need and wont want afterwards. isobel mourns the father she had after her mother died, but ketheric wants the isobel she used to be when melodia was still present in their lives. the isobel after melodia died eventually left him for aylin. grew up and became a person outside of their small family and community. had interests and desires and goals that took her away from him. she doesnt need aylin, doesnt need anything besides family. thats whats important, thats whats worth ruining lives over. everything after isobel was just a failed copy, not even worth reminiscing over. everyone beyond isobel doesnt matter. desecrate the family tomb, abuse your son, drag your aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters out from the grave just to see if it works, if it sticks, because the whole world revolves around a little girl who stopped existing long before she died, because she became someone else someone new and left you floundering alone. youll get them back even if it means you burn in hell forever, those few precious moments are worth it, itll all be worth it, its already worth it. kill yourself kill the world because the only god worth dying for is the one found in between poorly scratched letters on a paper rotting from age that say "love you papa, -I T". live every day with the smoke and the rot knowing that your father loved you so much he cant even look at who you are now. live every day knowing its a gift you cant return to a man who doesnt see you, knowing that all youll ever have are ghosts that seek to hollow you out and play pretend with the shell. hes awful. hes horrible. hes a monster. hes your dad and he loves you so much its killing you. will kill you. has killed you. has killed everything you could ever want in your life. hes your dad. he read you stories when you were small. kept you from falling apart when your mother died. your rock in stormy seas. he wants to read you another story. its dark outside. its scary. this story has a happy ending. its just for you. the girl in the picture book has your name but doesnt look like you at all. its written in silver blood. theres an ache that wont leave, a rot that refuses to mend, a scar that wont close, and its all for love

thinking about dirge being the one to drag isobel from her coffin, to bring her back for the sake of sealing a pact that will end the world, going against his entire religion the whole reason for his existence just for the sake of fulfilling his own fathers dreams. children living at the behest of their parents, denied death for their fathers selfish whims. isobel autopsied and opened, layers peeled back. gortash and ketheric never exhumed a body, never prepared it for the grave, never made such an intimate study of death. gortash unwilling to bloody himself unnecessarily, ketheric unwilling to look past the deathmask to see isobels interior, so its dirge, it has to be him, the only one willing to bite down his own desires for the greater good. an unforgivable violation of autonomy, but the only one who thinks of it as such is the scion of the murder god. she cant consent. she cant choose to be apart of this, to sacrifice herself for a cause greater than herself. he has to inflict this upon her. life is suffering and madness and delusion. death is peace, and he is the holy vessel of transition from one state to the other. this? this is blasphemy. she has already fled this horrid blighted world for a better one, and here he is participating in blasphemous ritual. its for the sake of their plan, its for the sake of enacting his fathers dreams (as all children know, you are naught but a vessel to achieve the goals they could not in their time), but she cannot even take glory in the knowledge of her sacrifice, cannot even know she is a sacrifice until its too late to go back. carves open and peels back the picturesque skin, preserved by gloom and arid darkness and sealed stone to keep away the rot. peeling away the mask of Isobel Thorm to see the visceral rotting insides of a person ketheric cant stand to see.

clearing away the ruin and decay so something new can take its place. corpses are objects fled of souls, no longer a person, no longer anything and thus free to toy and play with as boredom and curiosity desires, but this is not a thing. this will again be a person, a vessel to trap someone inside of, to force them to suffer and persist and delude and live and he cant even ask if shell do it. do it to help him break the world and put an end to this madness forever. cant convince her of the rightousness of it, the necessity of it, cant help but use her for it. to gortash she is a token exchanged for power, to ketheric she is a snapshot of a better world he wants to go back to, but only here on this dirty bloodstained table with a bhaalspawn elbow deep in her organs is she a person, whos autonomy and personhood is being irrevocably violated. his nature is to free them of these shackles, to snip the cords and revel in the ensuing destruction, and here he is binding her again. the humiliation, the horror, of being set loose from this hellscape only to be brought back. to be dragged, kicking and screaming, back into living. to be subject to such awful blasphemy. here in the dark and the quiet where there is no voice to speak back to him, when there is no rushing blood or beating hearts to call forth his purpose, there and then does armageddons prophet desire forgiveness, only in this shadowed purgatory can someone truly see. when all the world lies dead at my feet, i will beg forgiveness from no one but you. lamb on the altar, holy blood, if such desecration was not necessary for the cleansing of suffering, i would never deign to subject you to it. to you alone do i tender my apologies, my blessed father may forgive this sin in light of the retribution it will call forth, but cruel fate has chosen you without your knowledge to bear this disgusting violation, and the only salve i can offer is that, gods willing, you will not suffer long. to live in a world that could give rise to something like me is a torture i would not wish upon anyone, and for the sake of my father i inflict it upon you nonetheless. when you rise, my only thoughts will be of murder, holy and pure. but here in the dark, when you are at peace and i am not, i think of you, and what youd want, and how no one would ever, COULD ever, ask for what i do to you here. here in the quiet i breathlessly whisper a prayer meant only for your ears, a second sin i cannot stop myself from committing, here where you cannot hear me but God surely can, a wish that i will surely pay for dearly, a punishment i endure willingly and without complaint, a smallest fraction of the torment i knowingly inflict upon you. i live, and soon so shall you, and for that, i will never know peace.

im so sorry. i did it for love

[vilnan]

AFTER THE LANDSMEET;

talking with alistair.