#the way Aeryn knows Crais has a thing for her but she doesn't give a flying fig

[this-is-a-love-story-isnt-it]

Farscape 3x07

Crais thought he was going to get Aeryn to himself, but she walks aboard accompanied by the love of her life. 🤣

[dangermousie]

Farscape rewatch: Liars Guns and Money - 2x19-2x21 - meta part the first...

Liars, Guns and Money is my second favorite multiparter in all of Farscape, behind only We Are Screwed in season 4. Interestingly, they both involve Crichton on the ragged edge of sanity and a rescue of one member of the OTP by the other, willing to do anything it takes. 

In LGM it's Aeryn willing to do anything (including offering anything (by implication herself)) to get Crais to help to rescue John. In WASS it's John selling his soul to Scorpius. And of course, the insanity in LGM is literal but in WASS it's because John derails utterly when Aeryn is in danger. Before I get to character interactions, I want to mention how much I love the set design for these eps. The gorgeous golds and deep reds, and misty greys? 

Crichton has a huge self-sacrificial complex. When Scorpius offers to give back D'Argo's son in exchange for Crichton, he has no idea how effective a carrot he is dangling in front of John (and Scorpius never truly learns, does he, perhaps because he’s hampered by the fact that he’d sacrifice himself for nobody. He is hoping for D’Argo to turn John over, he’s not thinking Crichton would do it himself.) 

It's Crichton's own private way of self-destructing. He is, in a lot of ways, walking with so much guilt (because he cannot reconcile what he had become with his inner moral compass of his upbringing) and in a way the only value he sees is as 'victim' to other. Part of the reason he latches on to Aeryn so desperately is because of that same sense of guilt and nullity. She is his one link to sanity: I love the scene in the depository where he is completely losing it and he grabs her and desperately kisses her, as if she is his long drink of water, as if doing so clears his head. 

And he tries to tell her about his feelings but also about Scorpius, and he’s falling apart so hard and it’s painful to watch.

This is so Aeryn btw...and so John.

It’s actually a funny exchange that turns heartbreaking later on, as so many Farscape jokes tend to, when she really is ready to kill him later if that is the best outcome:

And even more horrifyingly, John actually ends up begging to be killed at the end of the three parter, something he was trying to avoid becoming the most he is hoping for and still beyond him:

https://dangermousie.tumblr.com/post/723680562432376832/still-sorting-through-my-million-caps-and-thoughts

I love how his love for Aeryn helps him navigate both trauma and insanity. In practical ways - like when he cannot coat Scorpius’ rods with explosives because the chip is fighting him, she does it for him but also in more intangible ways. Aeryn is the only one who is important enough to get through (of course when, as in DMD, even she finally cannot, that is when tragedy occurs). And that is true in later seasons, no matter how obsessed or catatonically destroyed he becomes (I am thinking of the end of PKW when it's Aeryn and his child who bring him out). Oh, and that scene when he desperately and incoherently wants to tell her how he feels. Because he can feel his inner self slipping and it feels as if it's almost the last chance. And she tells him he doesn't have to say it and his face where this is no comfort but a disappointment because he wanted to so badly. 

And the end of that part 1, kills me...when he tells her, so quietly and stumblingly, sounding so incredibly vulnerable 'I meant what I said...didn't say' (and he’s not even trying to say what it is, he’s beyond that) and she says she knows and it’s gentle and he is actually at peace with that now because this time he can process that she really does know. And she pulls his head down and puts it on her shoulder (this is such a their thing, he did it to her earlier; and I can’t tell you how much I needed the scene have that moment of touch-comfort at that moment). He is this beautiful broken thing, so far from what he started as but for a brief moment at peace. 

[karasbroken]

Look at John's eyes in that 4th Gif. LOOK AT THEM! It takes him a whole other year to say it, but this is a man who already knows he's in love. I think he was already recognizing the connection by the goodbye in A Human Reaction, that this was someone he deeply cared about, that he wanted to bring home with him for his sake, not just hers. Even if he was able to excuse the later sex as a stress and hormones incident, something has changed by then. But he didn't realize how deeply close they'd become, how invested he was, until he re-met Gilina in Nerve and her obvious passion and devotion to him only made him feel guilty and uncomfortable.

By here, in Mind the Baby, John had become a different man from the one who clicked with Gilina. He and Aeryn didn't click. They slid together slowly and inexorably, as their shared experiences and mutual sacrifices ground away all the rough places where they didn't fit, never seemed like they could fit, until they did and every attempt to force them back apart for the rest of the show would threaten to break them both to pieces.

It's the wrong time to say anything, they're all probably about to die, and even if he doesn't, he doesn't know when or if he'll see her again. He's still not sure at all what Aeryn feels, anyway, if she even has a concept of romantic love in the way that he does. Gilina did, but she was a Tech and they don't live the same life as Infantry. They're not made to be quite as cold, not used to quite as much loss. And Aeryn is extremely repressed even for a Peacekeeper, I think. She never wanted to get distracted by emotion, and she doesn't want to admit the ones she's feeling now.

But those fingers... I think she wanted to give him the ritual handshake, the only gesture she knew. But he was in too close, so she let him guide her, to twine his fingers in hers, and she doesn't know what it means. It's so sensual, so warm. They don't hug, I'm not sure they ever have, and I don't think it's a Peacekeeper thing to do. Colonials maybe, but do we see anyone hug? I have this vague sensation of Crais hugging once and maybe Scorpius, but it's not common. But John is definitely embracing her in this moment. He wants to wrap himself around her and kiss her deeply and passionately and not let go. But he satisfies himself with just her hand and her eyes.

Aeryn doesn't know what she's feeling, why this hurts so much that she can't say goodbye because goodbye would sound too final, make it too real. She isn't ready to never see him again, even though everything in her upbringing taught her to never get attached because everyone always leaves. There's so much pain in her eyes that she doesn't understand and can't voice for many reasons. But she doesn't want to let go of his hand either.

Guh. These two.

Farscape: Mind The Baby