#to know what the IF will ultimately do to that want for control and order and to help ppl rather forcefully

[ken-katayanagi]

Plus, SPOILERS: in other books we see how often the chance to go to battle school is kind of held over kids heads. Zeck deeply opposes Battle School as a concept but they basically threaten him with exposing his 'satanic' photographic memory to his father if he doesn't attend (his father who is shown in the first few pages to be abusive to the point of obvious scarring and Zeck letting an insect just crawl all over him (hell I think it might've been his eye) to avoid being accused of 'not listening' in church and thus again being beaten).

Bean attends partially to escape horrific poverty but also because part of his education on planet is predicated on the idea he's going to Battle School.

Hell, even when kids go voluntarily, they go because something big and scary happened and they, being children, feel it's easier just to go to Battle School. Bonzo goes because his parents are on the brink of divorce and he reacts very normally for a child, basically running away from the idea of his family structure changing. Han Tzu's dad gets arrested helping him cheat to get into Battle School (which he rlly didn't need to), and Han is like well my dad just went to jail for this guess I'm going. A less, well, evil system might wait until these big life events have calmed down so that these kids can make more rational decisions.

It's a system very aware of the people it's 'recruiting', and its only voluntary if they can afford to not have you attend.

anyone contrasted Starship Troopers (movie) with Ender's Game (movie) in the way that they both involve teenagers being drafted by a fascist state into genocidal war against aliens?

[the-woman-upstairs]

It’s just…so painful to watch Armand readily submit in order to obtain the love he so desperately craves. And while it’s most assuredly a manipulative tactic, it’s still one borne out of fear and desperation. He cannot lose this person he’s come to love and so will become whatever they want, do whatever they want just so they’ll stay with him. But it won’t be enough. No matter how much he acquiesces or seeks to control (himself, others, the environment), he won’t be able to make Louis stay with him in the perfect life, perfect self he built in the hopes of finally being loved. It will all crumble with Armand left alone in the rubble of what he created, the author of his own abandonment.

[solarpunkwarlock]

Ways to Live in Direct Opposition to Capitalism

I am by no means an expert in any of these things I’m gonna talk about, so keep that in mind! I am just making a compilation of things I know of that we can do to lessen the stranglehold the capitalist lifestyle has on us while enriching our lives, our surroundings, and the lives of others. Please add anything I miss or correct anything I may be getting wrong! Anyway here goes!

Use what you have, fix what’s you can, make what you can, accept from others, thrift what you can, and finally purchase as a last resort.

This is advice I have seen float around here a couple of times that can apply to a lot of things including clothing, furniture, food, and more besides. It’s meant to be done roughly in that order as it applies to what you’re wanting/needing/doing. It’s about preventing waste, promoting self-capability, having a heightened reliance on your community, and consciously rejecting the ingrained habit many of us have to just purchase things or services.

Here’s where you can read about growing an indoor garden!

Here’s where you can read about sewing things yourself!

Here’s an online site for giving and receiving items for free!

Here is where you can find a local Mutual Aid to get things from, learn skills from, give do, volunteer for, etc. (in the U.S.)

Be politically active! (from a U.S. perspective)

Vote for every election. Know your representatives and those who will be competing in the next election. Vote without ignorance and without falling for unfounded claims. While operating within the system that actively oppresses us will not bring about the future we want, it can serve as damage control (preventing worse candidates from taking office) and it can potentially create a national atmosphere more open to change.

Here’s a good article about getting more involved in the U.S. political process.

Here’s a site that will show you how to register to vote, when and where elections are held, and more!

Here’s good advice on finding protests in your city!

Here’s some readings on unionizing! It’s your legal right to unionize!

Here’s a more user friendly site for learning about unions!

Be active within your community!

Developing strong, motivated, capable, knowledgeable, and inclusive communities is the ultimate way to combat the relentless and bleak present and future. When you’ve worked on the things above and have gotten good at it (or even if you haven’t gotten good at it yet), start spreading what you know and what you can do with others!

Give your neighbors, coworkers, and friends some of the vegetables you’ve grown.

Invite your community members to volunteer events.

Talk to folks about how to vote, when you’re doing it, etc.

Take part in Mutual Aids to teach what you’ve learned or whatever you may be an expert in! Invite neighbors, friends, and coworkers when you take part in the Mutual Aid!

Accept your community. Take them for who and what they are. Discrimination is the enemy of cooperation. You have much more in common with everyone in your community than a single billionaire or corporation. We’re all passengers on this spaceship earth.

Do it one step at a time!

Obviously we can’t do all of these things at once. Do what you can when you can, and you’ll start to notice real change in your life!

Our online communities where we talk about our visions and hopes are fantastic, but they have little impact if we don’t actually get up and do the real work that change requires.

Want to be better, and keep hope for the future!

Harbor and nourish that desire to be a better person and to be the change you want to see in the world. You need to be hungry for a better future if you plan to make it through the rough times when everything feels pointless and without hope. Reach out to others when you’re down, and be someone others can lean on when their lives get hard.

That’s it! Please interact with this, spread it to others, and add your own thoughts and ideas! It’s important that we do the real work to get the change we crave!

[gureumz]

liar, sweetheart

rating: explicit

member: sunghoon

premise: your best friend, benj, is a twin but he's the complete opposite of his brother. his brother, sunghoon, is all kinds of sleazy, or so you've heard. knowing about your big fat crush on your best friend, this sorry excuse of a twin brother agrees to put in a good word, in exchange for a good fuck, of course.

notes: fem!reader, dom!sunghoon, sort of rivals-to-lovers, unprotected sex, slight breeding, dacryphilia, dirty talk, degradation, praise, clothed sex, accidental voyeurism, sunghoon is two people here lmao, lmk if i missed anything!

a/n: fifth entry for my 1k follower special! we're in the endgame now, people. one last after this and my 1k event is ending. how did that happen :') anyways, i really got back into my writing groove for this one so i hope you all enjoy!

"what do you think of sunghoon?"

your ears perk up as you turn your head to give your best friend a look.

oh, benj. sweet, sweet benjamin park.

awkward but in a cute, boyish sort of way, tall almost to the point of gangly, but handsome in the way supermodels were.

benj is a figure skater, a very good one at that. he's at the level where if he did well enough, he'd be international news tomorrow. you've seen him skate and to you, it was nothing short of mesmerizing.

oh, you. clueless, utterly clueless you.

honestly, it was all so predictable.

a situation right out of booktok's latest favorite friends-to-lovers novel by some up-and-coming author. the comfortable silence, the memorized starbucks orders, the pining, oh, the pining. booktok lives for the pining.

sitting here in benj's room as he casually games, fingers lazily moving over his ps5 controller, you realize just how utterly shortsighted you were.

of course you'd fall in love with your best friend. it's law. it's fate. a canon event, as the kids say.

but, you're getting out of topic here. right now, benj is asking you about his twin brother.

"what do you mean?" you ask, swiveling around in the office chair by benj's desk. benj is perched on his bed, leaned up against his headboard as he plays.

"like...what do you think of him...?" benj repeats, as if in an attempt to rephrase his question but ultimately failing.

your forehead creases even more.

"you have to be more specific than that," you chuckle.

benj pauses the game, setting the controller down. he shifts on his side so he can get a better look at you.

"do you like him?" benj deadpans, raising an eyebrow.

you nearly choke on your own saliva.

sunghoon. benj's twin brother.

the younger twin, as benj always reminded. your thoughts drift to the other park brother, complete in all his dark clothes and equally dark hair.

while benj afforded himself the preference of dying his hair an icy blonde, sunghoon kept his own hair jet black. benj wore sweaters and cardigans and loose-fitting shirts, but sunghoon wore button-ups, with the first three buttons popped open, paired with jeans ripped to the heavens.

benj is the shining star in this family, a star figure skater, an overachiever. sunghoon battles his way around ice hockey, dabbles in dance, keeps his triumphs to himself.

benj is the sun, while sunghoon is the moon. yin and yang.

you get the picture.

oh, and sunghoon is a complete asshole. benj is not.

"he's okay," you finally answer. benj looks at you like he's waiting for more.

"that's it?" benj asks after a second.

you roll your eyes. "i don't know what you want me to say. i barely talk to him since i spend most of my time with you."

benj cocks his head to the side, as if curious.

"weird," he says. "he asks about you all the time."

this piques your interest.

"he does?"

benj shrugs, returning his attention to the tv. he picks the forgotten controller back up, resuming his game.

"yeah. asks if and when you'll be coming over," benj explains. he shoots you a quick side glance.

"you're not hooking up behind my back, are you?"

you physically recoil at benj's words, the idea initially repulsive to you.

"absolutely not," you practically spit out. "he's not my type."

benj bursts out laughing, his eyes forming cute crescents as he does so.

"you basically just called me ugly with that," benj points out, eyes unmoving from the tv screen.

you stutter for a second. "that's not what i meant. it's just—well we're not close, at least not like how we are and—"

you sigh, cutting yourself off. you've embarrassed yourself enough, you think.

benj shakes his head, one side of his mouth turning up in a half-smile.

"okay, no need to explain, ______. i was just asking," benj says. "but the way you're so defensive about it is raising a few questions, not gonna lie."

you rub exasperatedly at your temples.

"i am not sleeping with your brother."

---

"hey."

you nearly jump a foot back in surprise. looking up, you're met with the stern gaze of sunghoon, black hair falling over his eyes. he's wearing one of those compression shirts, ridiculously tight against his toned upper body.

you turn away before it gets weird.

"oh, sorry, is benj home?" you ask, peeking momentarily past sunghoon.

"he's at training," sunghoon informs. "didn't he tell you?"

you glance at your watch. "he said he'd be done by now."

sunghoon raises an eyebrow. "well, he's not."

your mouth falls open, your mind momentarily going blank. you shift your expression to one of stony resolve.

"you know what, i'll just come back. sorry to bother you," you say, already turning away.

"i didn't tell you to leave, did i?"

you turn back, giving sunghoon a look. you stare hard, noticing just how much he resembles benj. but some things differ, naturally.

an extra beauty mark. the slightly sharper upturn of his nose. the seemingly eternal frown on his face.

"you can come in," sunghoon says with a sigh, stepping aside. you duck your head as you cross the threshold.

"and don't be so uptight next time," he adds. you can practically hear the smirk as he says this.

you glare daggers at sunghoon and he's still smiling as he closes the door behind him. he crosses his arms and studies you.

he leans back against the door and you straighten yourself up as much as you could.

"what's your problem, sunghoon?" you ask, planting your hands on your hips.

"what's yours?" sunghoon replies. you feel a twinge of annoyance spark in your chest.

"nothing," you emphasize. "and that's exactly it. i don't have a problem but if you don't stop acting like that, i might just have one soon enough."

"acting like what?" sunghoon questions, tilting his head to the side.

you swallow. you rack your brain for something to say, and don't be mistaken, you have a lot, but it's like your train of thought has halted altogether.

"like...that," you say, gesticulating vaguely with your hands.

sunghoon laughs, a hand coming up to run through his hair. you watch him, observe as his muscles shift beneath that stupidly tight, stupidly attractive shirt.

...what?

"are you this jumpy with my brother?" sunghoon asks, shoving his hands in the pockets of his grey sweatpants.

"i don't follow," you say, taking a step back. being close to sunghoon seems suffocating now, as if the air is stuffy with something you can't quite put your finger on.

"of course, you don't," sunghoon mutters under his breath.

it takes everything in you not to punch him square in the jaw.

"you like benj, don't you?" it's more of a statement rather than a question and it's so unexpected to you, you nearly stumble back in surprise.

"what?" is all you can say.

sunghoon snorts as if your confusion is oh-so-amusing.

"no need to deny it, _______," sunghoon reassures. "everyone with one working eye can see it."

you decide to stay silent. maybe if you don't react, sunghoon would drop the subject.

sunghoon seems satisfied with himself as he grins, nodding to himself, probably mentally patting himself on the back for his 'detective work'. he brushes past you and you get a whiff of his perfume and what you can assume is his body wash.

fresh. powdery. clean.

you wait a second before you hear his bedroom door close.

you let out a breath you weren't aware you were holding.

your phone vibrates with a notification and you're relieved to see it's a message from benj.

'are you at my place yet? i'll be home in a few. sunghoon will let you in. sorry, love u!'

you smile to yourself as you lock your phone.

---

you couldn't stop thinking about it.

were you really that obvious? or is it just some twin telepathy that's why sunghoon could tell? could benj tell?

you sit up, careful not to jostle anything in your immediate vicinity. you peer up at benj's sleeping figure from where you're situated on his spare mattress, positioned on the floor right next to his bed.

he seems to be deep in slumber, shoulders rising and falling steadily. you swallow, realizing how parched your throat has gotten. you get up on your feet, treading carefully around benj's room to get to the door.

you exit, walking down the hallway of the parks' penthouse apartment, trying to make as minimal sound as you can. you round the corner to where you know the kitchen is and you immediately stop in your tracks.

"shit—" you curse, startled by the figure standing by the kitchen island.

your eyes adjust to the dim lighting and you realize you've come face to face with sunghoon.

"hi, _______," sunghoon greets. "fancy seeing you here."

you huff, approaching the refrigerator. "ha ha. you scared the shit out of me."

you hear sunghoon laugh quietly from behind you.

you take the ice-cold pitcher out of the fridge, setting it on the counter before walking over to the cupboards where the parks keep their glasses.

you can feel sunghoon watching you, aware of the burning attention. you can feel your neck prickle with it.

you pull the cupboard door open and it's only now that you realize you can barely see. afraid to just reach in and possibly knock over and break something, you pause, willing your vision to adjust even more to the low lighting.

"hey, can you turn on the—"

your words are cut off when you feel warmth press up against your back. you flinch, watching with wide eyes as sunghoon's arm braces itself against the countertop in front of you. he reaches over you, his breath tickling the top of your head.

you shiver involuntarily.

you turn to face him, pressing yourself fully against the granite behind you. sunghoon pulls a glass down from the cupboard, handing it to you. his arm is still planted firmly to your side, half caging you in.

"here," sunghoon says.

you can just make out his face in the low light, his scent invading your senses once more. you take the glass from him and he steps away, freeing you.

you wordlessly return to the center of the kitchen, pouring yourself the water you desperately need. and boy, do you need it.

you gulp down mouthfuls of it, unsure why your legs are suddenly weak, your knees threatening to give out.

"hey," sunghoon calls out. you pause, turning to where he's still standing by the cupboards.

he has the same easy stance he had earlier in the day. leaned back, arms crossed. even in the dark, you can feel him staring.

"what?" it comes out a little more harshly than you'd like and you wince.

"do you hate me or something?" sunghoon asks brusquely.

once again, you find yourself rendered speechless by sunghoon.

"no," you answer simply, setting your glass down.

"then why don't you hang out with me like you do with benj?" sunghoon asks, approaching you.

"because benj is my best friend, you're not," you respond. sunghoon stops right in front of you and you have to crane your neck to meet where you think his eyes are.

"your best friend that you're in love with," sunghoon says, a hint of amusement in his voice.

"that's not true," you deny.

sunghoon snickers. "sure, keep lying to yourself, sweetheart."

you inhale at the term of endearment.

"you know, i never understood why you got closer to him but you stopped spending time with me altogether," sunghoon muses. "the three of us grew up together, remember?"

you do.

the afternoons spent in the local playground. you and benj sat on the swings while sunghoon pushed. you and sunghoon on the seesaw while benj attempted to balance in the middle (much to their mother's horror). the twins hiding while you played seeker.

a smile tugs at your lips at the memory. and then it falters just as quick.

"you were the one who stopped hanging out with us," you say, a little accusatory in the way you did. "you had newer ice hockey friends and when middle school rolled around, you decided those girls were worth your time more than us."

'more than me,' is what you wanted to say. but you swallow it down.

sunghoon stays silent at this. after what you estimate is a minute, he sighs.

"sorry," is all he says.

you shake your head. "it's okay, we all drift apart from our childhood friends at one point."

sunghoon steps even closer. you can feel him now. a strange crackle of electricity tickles your fingertips.

"that's not the case with you and benj," sunghoon observes.

it's your turn to say nothing.

"i can help you," sunghoon suggests. your head snaps up as you try to process sunghoon's words.

you can see him now, illuminated by the faint hallway lights behind you. sunghoon's looking at you, expression unreadable.

"help me?" you parrot back. sunghoon nods.

"i can help you get with benj, if that's what you want. plant the seeds, so to speak," sunghoon explains. "he is my twin brother, after all."

you consider this for a moment. there's no denying the giddy feeling you get in benj's presence. the comfort it gives you when you spend the whole day together. the butterflies in your stomach when he beams at you, all bright and shining.

this should be an offer you can't refuse.

"i just have one thing to ask of you," sunghoon cuts through your thoughts.

"what?" you ask.

sunghoon pauses, turning away as if gathering his own words.

"do you ever feel that there's this weird...thing between us?" sunghoon asks.

your whole body seems to stiffen. your hands turn cold, clammy.

"like tension," sunghoon elaborates. "something you can't really explain."

"no," you answer a little too quickly.

sunghoon chuckles. "there you go again, lying."

you avoid sunghoon's gaze, staring hard at a spot behind him where his shadow dances against the cabinets.

"if you agree to...try this thing with me just this once, i'll help you get together with benj," sunghoon concludes, bending lower so he's in your line of sight.

unable to avoid him any longer, you look into sunghoon's eyes. he's much clearer now, your eyes well-adjusted to the dark. he's looking at you, expression soft, unlike the other times you've come face-to-face with him.

"so, you're offering to be my wingman, but only if i let you fuck me?" you string your words out carefully. "is that it?"

sunghoon sighs, shrugging. "basically, yeah. sounds fucking weird but you can always say no."

"it is weird," you confirm. you cross your arms as you narrow your eyes at sunghoon.

"can't we just skip the part where we fuck and go straight to the part where you help me?"

sunghoon grins down at you, dipping even lower so you're eye level with him.

"it's as if you don't know me at all, _______," sunghoon says lowly. "that hardly seems fair, sweetheart."

you grit your teeth.

"besides, do you want to skip the part where we fuck?" sunghoon presses on the last word, holding your gaze as he said it. you feel a warmth spread all over your body.

you take a deep breath, steadying yourself. your mind is at war with itself, warning you that this is a bad idea. if you get together with benj after, what then? take the secret that you fucked his brother to your grave?

"just this once, and when we're done, you'll help me, correct?" you say, raising a brow at sunghoon.

sunghoon nods. "exactly."

you pause. you want it. what 'it' is, you're not so sure.

you reach your hand out.

"deal."

sunghoon grasps your hand in his, squeezing firmly. his fingers envelop yours easily, your palm almost cartoonishly smaller than his.

and he's warm. so warm.

your eyes meet his and it's like something snaps.

you feel sunghoon grasp at your waist and your own arms come flying up to wrap around sunghoon's neck. he kisses you fervently, harshly, desperately. you respond with the same enthusiasm, pulling him closer to you.

sunghoon pushes you against the fridge, the contents rattling within. you gasp as the cold metal presses through your thin pajamas, but sunghoon drinks in any noise from you with his mouth.

"fuck," sunghoon mutters softly.

"god, ______," sunghoon continues, hands splayed against your back, his lips exploring the expanse of your neck.

"sunghoon," you whisper, clutching onto his wide frame. you mewl softly when you feel him suckle on a spot just above your collarbone.

you pull sunghoon away from your neck, guiding his face back to level with yours. you kiss him some more, a strange feeling bubbling within you.

it's making you want more of sunghoon, as if your whole being craved him.

you hear a soft click of a door opening somewhere down the hall and your eyes fly open, your hands forcing sunghoon off you. he jumps back as well, a panicked look on his face.

footsteps echo in the hallway and a voice immediately follows after.

"_______?"

benj. it's benj. his voice is thick with sleep and you look over at sunghoon, eyes wide with alarm.

"i-i'm in the kitchen," you call out. "just needed a drink."

you rush out of the kitchen and into the hall, running right into benj's firm chest. he catches you before you stumble and he holds you at arm's length, looking at you through half-closed eyes.

"there you are," benj says with a laugh.

you let out a nervous giggle of your own, gently pushing benj back towards his room.

"i'm right here," you assure him. benj rambles on about hearing noises from his room and you quickly dismiss it as you just messing around in their kitchen.

just as you herd benj back into his room, you look back down the hall and see sunghoon sauntering casually towards his own door. he catches your eye and winks, stepping quietly into his room.

---

"i know what you were doing last night."

you stop dead in your tracks, hand frozen in midair just as you're unwrapping your hair from your towel.

you had just stepped out of the bathroom adjacent to benj's room, dressed in his shirt and your shorts from yesterday. it's the morning after your little tryst with sunghoon and you were nearly a hundred percent sure you had successfully lied your way out of an explanation to benj.

it turns out, you haven't.

"you were hooking up with sunghoon, weren't you?" benj says, looking at you expectantly.

you put on your best attempt at an appalled expression, eyes wide an lips turning down into a frown.

"no, i wasn't," you muster up with as much disgust as you can.

benj just laughs. "i've lived here for nearly half my life, ____. i know the sounds of this house better than you."

"well, you thought wrong," you argue, busying yourself with brushing through your hair. you keep your eyes trained on the full body mirror in front of you, setting your sight on your own face.

benj comes up behind you, looking at you as if he could see right through you.

you think maybe he can.

"you're such a bad liar," benj accuses.

"i would never hook up with your brother," you protest, raking through your hair aggressively. you're getting antsy and you pray that benj would just drop the subject.

"why not?" benj questions.

you look at his reflection, scowling. "i don't like him like that, benj."

"hooking up with him would feel like hooking up with you," you add. 'a red herring, yes,' you think. 'distract him, make him feel weird for even asking.'

benj gives you a look. "what's so bad about that?"

you stare open-mouthed at benj. a million thoughts are flying through your head and something pinches at your chest.

"you're my best friend, benj," you try to reason. "that's weird."

"and hooking up with my brother isn't?"

you groan, letting your head fall into your hands.

"i didn't hook up with sunghoon!"

benj nods, pouting as if not fully convinced. "okay, whatever you say."

he steps out through the door, leaving you in his eerily quiet room.

you sigh, turning back to your reflection.

"not yet," you whisper to yourself.

---

"aren't you leaving yet?"

you look up from your phone and you're met with sunghoon peeking through benj's door. his hair is damp and you can smell his aftershave from where you're sprawled out on benj's bed.

"nope," you reply curtly, turning back to your phone.

"you've been here two days," sunghoon points out, stepping into the room. you ignore the jolt of excitement in your gut.

"i'll leave once benj comes back from training," you say.

"oh sure, then the two of you will get caught up again in whatever nerd things you do, and then it's the evening and you'll stay another night, walking around in your skimpy pajamas," sunghoon rambles sarcastically.

you narrow your eyes him as you sit up. "what's wrong with my pajamas?"

"they make me impossibly hard, _______. that's what's wrong," sunghoon admits, expression unchanging.

your eyebrows shoot up in mild surprise. "that down bad, huh?"

"nah," sunghoon replies nonchalantly.

"whatever you say, sweetheart," you say, throwing the pet name back at sunghoon.

sunghoon lets his eyes travel over your body, expression darkening, and you feel every hair on your skin stand up under his unrelenting gaze. you shift around, unsure of what to do with sunghoon's undivided attention.

you watch as sunghoon approaches, his jaw set as he pauses right before benj's bed. he meets your eyes and before you know it, sunghoon is crawling over you, stopping once he has you caged in between his arms.

"you're seriously not thinking of fucking me on your twin brother's bed, are you?" you whisper. you're nearly nose to nose with sunghoon now.

"i am," sunghoon answers simply before kissing you, effectively driving you back against the plush mattress.

the same bubbling feeling reappears and you grab at any part of sunghoon that you can, hooking your legs around his waist. he grunts against your mouth and you feel him harden against your core.

"this is my shirt by the way," sunghoon grins against your lips. "benj stole it from me a while back."

you moan at the thought of it. you feel sunghoon reach under your—his—shirt, chuckling when he feels the absence of a bra. he cups one of your breasts in his hand, kneading as he continues his assault on your lips.

"lose this," sunghoon commands, his other hand tugging your shorts down harshly. you oblige, reaching down to discard the piece of clothing along with your underwear.

"but keep this on," sunghoon adds as he kisses along your jaw, referring to the large shirt swallowing your frame.

you kick off your shorts and underwear the same time sunghoon pulls back to undo his own joggers. he throws them off to the side unceremoniously before hovering back over you, his eyes scanning every feature of your face.

"if you're so in love with benj, why are you about to sleep with me on his bed?" sunghoon asks, his fingers trailing down delicately from your chest down to your stomach. you flinch, fighting the urge to curl into yourself at the ticklish feeling.

sunghoon continues down towards the space between your legs, wasting no time swiping through your folds. you gasp, back arching as sunghoon rubs up and down, finger circling teasingly around your entrance.

"you talk too much," you counter, voice shaking. "are you gonna fuck my brains out or what?"

sunghoon sneers, shoving two fingers in without warning. you yelp, turning to bury your face in benj's pillow. it smells like him, but you barely register that, seeing as his twin's fingers are knuckles deep in you.

"go on, run your mouth like you always do, slut," sunghoon taunts. you involuntarily clench down at his use of such a degrading word and sunghoon notices, of course, his mouth curling into a smirk.

"should have known you were into that," sunghoon wonders out loud. he moves his fingers in and out of you, pumping his thick digits into your wanting hole.

you clamp a hand down on your mouth, suppressing every noise that threatens to escape you.

"let me hear you, pretty, come on," sunghoon coos, prying your hand off your face. "it's just the two of us here."

you bite your lip but let yourself be heard as sunghoon continues to fuck you with his fingers. he curls them up inside you and you thrash about, the pressure building within your abdomen.

"gonna cum already? you're so fucking easy," sunghoon comments, leveling his face with your cunt. he blows softly against your clit and you cry out in pleasure.

you feel the wet heat of his tongue press against your bundle of nerves and coupled with sunghoon's fingers, you can't help but curse loudly at the sensations.

"shit, sunghoon!" you whine. "yes, just like that, please."

sunghoon wraps his lips around your clit, sucking and running his tongue over it alternately. you feel like you're about to lose your mind. you're seconds away from orgasm and you barely have any time to warn sunghoon.

"i'm gonna cum, sunghoon i'm gonna—"

you're cut short by your own loud moans as you feel yourself come undone, your whole body seizing up. you grip at the sheets beneath you with one hand while the other reaches down to thread through sunghoon's hair. you hear him grunt against your pussy as you tug at the strands.

eventually, you relax, easing up on sunghoon's hair. he comes up to face you, his mouth glistening with your release. he licks his lips, smirking at the way you watch him with awe.

"you still with me?" sunghoon asks with a raise of his brow. you nod weakly, hands coming up to cup at his face.

sunghoon leans down to kiss you tenderly and you moan as you taste yourself on his lips. he moves his lips against yours slowly, savoring each pass of your tongue over each other's, tugging on your bottom lip with his teeth as he pulls away.

you peek down and see that sunghoon's cock stands red and angry against the black of his shirt.

"fuck me raw," you say before you can stop yourself.

sunghoon's eyebrows shoot up.

"are you sure?" he asks.

you nod, angling your hips up. restraint be damned, you want sunghoon and you want him now.

sunghoon chews down on his bottom lip as he lines himself up against your dripping hole. he coats his tip with your juices and you throw your head back as he teases you with his leaking cock.

"please," you whisper.

sunghoon presses a kiss on your cheek. "i got you, angel."

you feel him push in, stretching you out more than you anticipated. your mouth falls open in a silent moan as sunghoon slowly but surely bottoms out. your heart races and your mind loses all coherent thought. all you can register is that sunghoon feels like he's splitting you open with his dick.

"fuuuuck," sunghoon drawls into your ear.

"so fucking tight and so fucking good," he continues, bracing himself on either side of you. he moves his hips experimentally, pulling out then thrusting in and the two of you moan at the same time.

"give it to me," you pant, pulling sunghoon closer. "don't you dare hold back."

sunghoon grunts as he snaps his hips forward. you whine and moan like a whore as sunghoon fucks into you with reckless abandon. he keeps his eyes on your face, observing every expression that passes over your features.

"look at me," sunghoon orders as you let your eyes flutter close. "i said, look at me."

you obey, peering up at sunghoon through your lashes. he grabs your jaw as he hammers even harder into you. you cry out brokenly as you feel him deep within you. he's like a man starved, eyes wild as he takes you like this. rough and uncaring and oh so desperate.

"waited so long for this," sunghoon grunts. "to have you moaning and begging under me."

you feel tears prickle in your eyes, half from sunghoon's sharp nails digging into your cheek and half from the way his cock repeatedly punches against your cervix. it hurts but it's a pain you'd like to savor.

"god," sunghoon says, his face scrunching up in pleasure. he momentarily closes his eyes as he moves his hips even faster. he turns back to you, and by this time, your tears have escaped, streaking your face.

"fuck yeah, cry for me," sunghoon curses. "my pretty slut, weeping over my dick."

"oh, fuck—"

it came so suddenly, so unexpectedly that you can physically feel your body jolt. your second orgasm of the day rips through you, brought about by the filthy words escaping sunghoon's mouth. you hear him practically growl above you as he stills, your cunt clenching down so hard he's unable to move. you feel him twitch inside you and a second later, the warmth of his cum follows, shooting deep inside.

you're full-on crying now, mind hazy from pleasure as sunghoon catches himself before completely crushing you with his weight.

you wrap your shaky arms around sunghoon's shoulders, stroking his hair as the two of you calm yourselves down. sunghoon pulls out a minute later and you wince, immediately clamping your legs together to keep all of him inside you.

sunghoon plops down next to you, breathing heavy as his eyes stare at the ceiling. you hug your knees to your chest, hoping that nothing stains benj's sheets.

"fuck, that's a good girl, keeping all my cum in," sunghoon says through breathless chuckles. you groan, swatting at his chest.

"get tissues or something," you demand weakly, rolling over to your side. sunghoon pulls you close and cradles you against his chest.

"later," he murmurs, kissing you on the forehead. "just wanna hold you."

you hum in agreement, letting your eyes droop close. the two of you lay there, unmoving for a few minutes.

you initially think it's your imagination but you can hear faint footsteps coming down the hallway from outside benj's room. just as your eyes fly open, a loud knock thunders against the door.

"are you done?" comes benj's muffled voice from the other side.

"as much as i wanted to stay and watch, that might not be something you guys are into, so i gave you your privacy," he continues.

you and sunghoon look at each other, clearly panicking.

"but please, for the love of god, don't do it on my goddamn bed next time!"

[antianakin]

I recognize that these are very questionable things for Padme to have done, and I call it out when I talk about her quite often, so I don't deny that these choices on Padme's part CAN be interpreted as Padme being... somewhat darker.

And I do personally believe that Padme's choice to be with Anakin despite the obvious red flags in AOTC was intended to be seen as a selfish choice on her part, that her feelings for him (or, perhaps more accurately, for what he REPRESENTED to her) overrode her morals. So it's not like I think the narrative doesn't represent her with flaws ENTIRELY, but I don't know that I'd say that the narrative itself represents her as DARK.

Padme spends a lot of her time being nice, being sweet and kind, and when she's not doing that, she's often off making big impassioned speeches about how they shouldn't go to war or about justice and things like that. She is very much represented as, generally, morally GOOD, and morally BETTER than many of the people around her.

In TCW, she often got turned into an action Barbie of sorts, either fighting the good fight in the Senate or fighting the good fight in the streets somewhere. She's the one who goes to try to get the Separatists to talk about peace, she's one of the Senators involved in whatever summit is happening on Mandalore with the Separatists, she's the one who insists that Ahsoka should learn more about politics, so on and so forth.

So while you do not personally care for some of the decisions she makes regarding Anakin and the way she chooses to ignore or brush aside some of his behaviors (and I don't think you're WRONG to dislike them, I obviously also personally dislike them and I think that the narrative does in some ways question her decision and expects the audience to do so as well), I don't think it is accurate to claim that Padme is DARK and certainly not that the narrative expects you to see her as dark.

Padme makes some questionable decisions, yes, she makes some SELFISH decisions, yes, and those decisions do ultimately lead Anakin to find ways to excuse away his actions, but I also don't believe Padme intends for that to be the outcome of her choices. When she tells Anakin "To be angry is to be human" she's hoping that he'll calm down and figure himself out and that this will be a one-off event. Natalie Portman claimed that she played that scene as Padme sort-of feeling like she wants to SAVE him with her love, that she RECOGNIZES his anger has led him to do dangerous things, but that she believes she can fix him with kindness. While you can question that belief, it's clearly coming from a good place and a desire to help Anakin be BETTER rather than an intentional disregard for Tusken lives.

You can likely apply a similar thought process to why Padme reacts the way she does to Order 66. She can barely believe that Anakin WOULD do something like that (with the Tuskens, she sees how the Larses speak about the Tuskens and so she can understand that there's a clear hostility between the Tuskens and the human settlers that Anakin likely experienced himself, and the Tuskens DID capture an innocent unarmed woman and tortured her to death, so they've clearly done something pretty heinous that provoked Anakin's ire; but with the Jedi, NEITHER of those things are true since Anakin SHOULD be on good terms with the Jedi and they haven't done anything to specifically earn this kind of treatment from Anakin). She goes to Mustafar just to try to clear things up, knowing that Anakin is capable of ruthlessness, but hoping he isn't capable of this kind of BETRAYAL, and clearly recognizing that she might have to do some damage control again. You can see her switch from just asking him to deny what he did to trying to "save him" with love and kindness again, hence the option of just running away. It's only once Anakin refuses that kind of comfort that she starts to back away saying he's going down a path she can't follow. But even that line has been argued to be more of a WARNING than a THREAT, another entreaty for Anakin to come back to her rather than an ultimatum.

And you can tell that Padme IS horrified by what he did to the Jedi, it DOES bother her on a moral level, but she has invested so much of herself into this relationship that she can't really let go of it any more than Anakin can in some ways. She is not without her flaws. But I don't see Padme committing her OWN genocide to save Anakin. The closest she gets is in TCW when she chooses to trade Grievous for Anakin, but this is a choice that's backed up by both Jar Jar and the Gungan leader (more accurately, they literally convince her INTO IT when Padme hesitates over making the trade).

Padme isn't dark in canon. She is flawed. There's a difference.

What I WANT when I say I'd like Padme to have gone dark is to see Padme be CORRUPT. One of the ways I think the Anidala relationship storyline in AOTC could've been helped was if we saw more of Padme being politically corrupt so that her choice to be selfish with Anakin felt more in line with her stated morals. Perhaps she's not necessarily out there murdering people, but she's not above, say, taking bribes or things like that. She's not a perfectly pure politician who always fights for what's right. This would perhaps make her a simpler character, less complex and nuanced, but I also don't find that there was enough time or space for Padme's complexity and nuances to be explored in a way that really made a lot of sense, so instead of being complex she's just sort-of contradictory. You find her "sociopathic" because her morals and motives seem to vacillate wildly depending on what the scene requires of her, rather than being more clear and coherent from one scene to the next.

So, yeah, I think Padme can get a LOT darker. I think you could really look at whether Padme would've ultimately gone along with what Anakin would've asked of her if she'd survived Mustafar or if she'd never GONE to Mustafar. What would she have done if Anakin had made her an Empress? How much would she have allowed and how desensitized might she become to certain atrocities over time? Would she ever get to a point where she didn't just allow murder, but actually ASKED for it? Could she be pushed to feel like it was necessary for one reason or another? If Anakin made her feel like this was her perfect dream, or that her family was being threatened, would she be willing to defend it with oppression and murder? Would she start to maybe enjoy the power she'd been granted as an Empress, would it start to change her to someone very different from who she'd been before she married Anakin? Would her parents and her sister and her nieces even recognize her when they saw her in broadcasts anymore?

Come on, we can get more creative than just... what's in the films. Making her darker and more morally corrupt is a way to make her more likable and more coherent. Maybe she's not quite as against dictatorships as she thought she was, maybe her frustrations with the Senate and the Corporate Alliance are starting to tear down the passionate young Queen that fought for her people's freedom. Maybe she feels like she IS fighting for people's freedoms still, but she's willing to do a heck of a lot more to get it. Maybe she's far more sympathetic to the Separatist side of things than she is in canon and nearly lets them win a few times because... what if. What if they DID just burn it all down and start again? Would it truly be so bad?

THAT'S what I mean when I say I want her darker. I don't just want a young romantic woman getting swept up in what she thinks is an epic romance that she's willing to believe that her love can fix a dangerous man just because he says things to her like "I'm haunted by the kiss you should never have given me." I want someone who is attracted to this dangerous man because she's not truly all that different from him and she's already slipping down her own slope towards darkness. I want a Padme who's already made some moral concessions in the name of justice or freedom and figured out how to sleep at night still. I want a Padme who is willing to achieve a victory at nearly any cost. I want a Padme who is perhaps not all that devastated by her handmaiden's death because, well, that's what she's for isn't it? I want a Padme already becoming desensitized to things that would've appalled her ten years ago and Anakin's shaking simmering rage about the state of the world echoes her own.

Characters that would be improved if they were darker, more evil, or morally corrupt:

Ahsoka Tano

Satine Kryze

Padme Amidala

Characters that would NOT be improved if they were darker, more evil, or morally corrupt:

Obi-Wan Kenobi

Leia Organa

Mace Windu

Yoda

Luke Skywalker

[milswrites]

Stubborn Little Fox

~ Eris Vanserra X Reader

Summary: Eris struggles to look after his stubborn mate when you are sick.

Warnings: Poorly reader but it’s pretty much fluff. Maybe some suggestiveness.

Notes: Just a silly little fic to tide you over until I finish the angst I’m writing. Dedicated to @sarawritestories who wrote me this exact scenario in an attempt to get me to stop writing and go to bed 😌

Your bed was empty.

Again. 

The wrinkled covers pulled back to reveal the bare sheets of where you had once laid, where Eris was supposed find you soundly sleeping upon entering the room.

The Autumn Prince cursed lowly under his breath, knuckles turning white with frustration as he tightly gripped onto the tray of food he had prepared for you.

It was easier to control his hounds - Eris thought as he carefully placed the tray down on the edge of the bed, lest he toss its contents onto the floor in his anger.

Eris was used to completing impossible jobs, and yet nothing has been more difficult than trying to wrangle his sick mate and convince you to sleep away your illness. Your inability to sit still making caring for you harder than Eris had initially anticipated.

He needn’t try too hard to find you, a swift wander down the hall and to his office was all Eris needed to walk before he opened the door to find your sickly form hunched over his desk with a pen in hand. Scribbling away at whatever documents had been left for you once you had recovered.

It was impossible to stop the exasperated sigh which fell from his lips as he took in the paleness of your face and the worrying sheen of sweat which had coated it.

“And why, pray tell me, aren’t you in bed where you’re supposed to be Little Fox?” Eris snarled, all comfort forgotten as he once more found himself trying to coax you back towards your bed.

With shaking hands you reluctantly place your pen down, guilty eyes meeting the burning stare of your mates unforgiving glare. “I’ve got work to finish!” You defend, gesturing to the stack of paperwork which had only grown during your absence from your job.

At your excuse, the red-haired male inhaled deeply, a disbelieving hand coming to pinch the bridge of his nose in annoyance. And it wasn’t until Eris exhaled his frustrations that he allowed himself to reply as softly as he could, “work can wait until you’re feeling better.”

“It can’t,” you reason, a disappointed sigh drawing from your sickly lips, “I’m far enough behind as it is. Another day without work and I’ll never be able to catch up. Besides, I’m fine. I feel much better now.”

Whilst Eris prided himself on holding back the roll of his eyes which threatened to occur, he failed to stop the raise of his brow as you proceeded to burst into a fit of coughs after your weak-willed reassurances.

“All better?” He mused, a small smirk finding its home on his lips as he watched you pitifully try to compose yourself. Innocent eyes meeting his own as your incessant coughing eventually came to a halt.

“I have to say Little Fox, if I didn’t know any better I’d say you like going against my orders” Eris chided, slowly walking towards you as he spoke. Each step forward drawing you deeper into his hypnotic trance. “Would I be correct in assuming you keep leaving your bed because you want me to scold you?” He asks teasingly, bringing his face down to meet yours, until his playful eyes were level with your own.

“I can’t say I’d hate it if you had to take care of me” you replied honestly, unable to help the way your gaze drifted towards your mates slightly parted lips.

“Is that not what I’ve been doing all this time?” Eris feigns hurt which fails to read through his wicked smile, “Taking care of my mate?”

“I can think of a few more ways I’d like to be taken care of” you answer, hoping to be seductive but ultimately failing as another round of coughs wrack your chest.

“Later” Eris chuckled, his strong arms coming to lift you from where you were sat, “for now you need sleep.”

You furrow your brows in protest, opening your mouth to argue with your mate before he beat you to it. Eris’s soothing voice acting to calm you, “Don’t worry, I’m going to have to cuddle you just to make sure you don’t run off anywhere else.”

Eris’s warm lips came to meet your aching forehead, his kiss already working to dissipate the uncomfortable pulsating of your sore temples. Your mates healing touch enough to already have you drifting off in his comforting embrace.

“My stubborn Little Fox,” he uttered as he began to move back towards the bedroom which you shared, cradling you close to his body in hope that the heat which he emitted would soothe your aching joints, “you better feel well again soon, I’ll be waiting to deliver your punishment for disobeying me.”

You hum happily in response, nuzzling your face into his warm chest to hide your smirk of anticipation, “I’m looking forward to it, My Prince.”

It was only once you woke, when your fever had broken and the ache in your muscles had quelled, that you noticed that Eris was no longer holding you. That it was his turn to escape the comfortable confines of your sheets which had now grown cold in his absence.

Stepping out from the warmth of your covers, you walked barefoot across the cold wooden floors. Seeking the ever-lasting warmth of your mate. You followed the call, moving through the hall until you found yourself outside his office, the strong scent of crackling wood and chestnuts enough to tell you the male was waiting inside.

Cracking open the door you peered inside, noting the way Eris was slumped over the freshly inked papers you had saved to work on when your health had improved.

Your mate - your selfless, loving mate - had completed them all. No doubt seeking to ease your worries and provide you with the extra hours of rest you would no doubt need once you had woken.

Quietly pulling the door to, you move to the kitchen to prepare your love a warming tea. Because as much as Eris longed to take care of those he loved so dearly, sometimes what he needed was for someone to take care of him in return.

[roseroro]

Autonomy / choices in Mouthwashing…

I’ve only played the game once this very morning but goddamn the THOUGHTS. Will replay for more insight now that I know what it’s all about. In the meantime:

Daisuke, the young last-minute intern. From beginning to end, his autonomy is non-existent. He didn’t sign up to be on the Tulpar, his mother did it so he’d stop “slacking”. Under Swansea’s supervision, he can’t make his own choices, and instead spends his time on pointless repetitive tasks that don’t give him opportunities for mistakes. (Mistakes being the only example of him having a shred of autonomy, when he ends up stuck in foam… he’s doing his best I promise 😭). Then, when Anya locks herself in medical, Jimmy orders him to deceive Swansea then to go into the vent. Even his (merciful) death is someone else’s choice, Swansea’s (who swings the axe) and Jimmy’s (who brought him to that point).

Curly, the captain. Originally in a position of relative power (still under Pony Express), Jimmy strips him of everything and frames him for the mess he created. Curly is left unable to do anything but lie there and let others decide what he needs, what he wants, what he feels… what he did. No longer truly seen as human, his two perceived states are (irritating, noisy) pain and (accomodating) silence - silence achieved through force, shoving painkillers down his throat. He can do nothing but witness the events, yet he survives to the end. Unable to get in Jimmy’s way in his state, he becomes his puppet, the conduit for Jimmy’s delusion about being the hero and fixing things. His life is Jimmy’s choice.

Anya, the nurse and only woman on the ship. Belittled, abused, and raped by Jimmy and pregnant from it, her bodily autonomy is taken from her. After the crash, she’s left to care for Curly (who was supposed to take care of her before the crash, but didn’t despite his promises), who’s also lost his bodily autonomy, but she can’t bring herself to, well, force painkillers down his throat. The parallel to her own suffering too vivid. She chooses her death as a last attempt at regaining agency over her life (and, of course, makes that choice next to Curly), but Jimmy ultimately forced that choice on her, as he did with the others.

Swansea, the grumpy old man with a heart. As Daisuke’s supervisor, he steals part of his autonomy - but unlike Jimmy, he does so with Daisuke’s best interests in mind. He’s a protector, not an abuser. He also protects the sole working cryogenic pod from Jimmy - not for himself, as Jimmy believes, but most likely for his protégé. That choice is taken from him by Jimmy, who uses his alcoholism against him. In the end, Swansea is the only one who is able to truly fight back. Unfortunately, Jimmy is in possession of the strongest authority tool there is - a gun. The gun that the powers that be, Pony Express, placed there from the beginning to deal with eventual mutinies. Swansea never had a chance or a choice in the face of such powers.

Jimmy, the abuser. At the risk of repeating myself, he abuses everyone on the ship, he craves control and authority, he uses people’s weaknesses to obtain what he wants. He ends up as the only person in a position where he can make choices at all. He chooses how he lives and how he dies, he thinks he’s the hero of the story. The second he thinks his freedom is about to be taken from him (when he is about to lose his job and have a child with the woman he raped), he snaps and takes everyone’s fate into his own hands, he would rather kill everyone including himself than lose control. Obsessed with taking responsibility, never actually doing it.

Screaming crying chewing on drywall how can a 2h30 long game have so much in it there’s SO MUCH TO SAY

[dalishious]

Dragon Age: Origins is still great today, and you should give it a try

I want to preface this post with an important disclaimer: I am not about gatekeeping, and I think that ultimately, you should play or skip whatever Dragon Age games you want. If even after this post you feel like Dragon Age: Origins just isn’t for you, that’s fine! That doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy the Dragon Age media you do want to consume, and it certainly doesn’t mean you’re any less valid a fan. But I personally adore Dragon Age: Origins to this day, and I would love to see more modern gamers give it a chance, despite it being from 2009.

It’s a great introduction to the world of Thedas

Dragon Age: Origins had the tall order of being the first in a potential franchise, yet it climbed those heights and beyond. It perfectly balances the need to explain the world setting and tell a story within that world at the same time, by organizing the plot into puzzle pieces. You, the protagonist, have to recruit different factions into your cause to save the kingdom of Ferelden, so each piece of the game has a different focus on those factions. It spoon-feeds the player information at an easy to understand and absorb pace.

Dragon Age: Origins also makes good use of codex entries for those of you who are big lore buffs and want even more information. Yet at the same time, it does not overly rely on the codex; all the most crucial parts of the lore that you need to know are included in your interactions with characters and plot.

The player gets to shape the story

The nature of those puzzle pieces also means that you have huge control over the story from start to finish, because the puzzle itself is shaped by you! The outcomes of each piece form the blueprint of the climax. The end of the game is reactive to the choices you make in the story throughout. (Mind you, a lot of those choices have been retconned in later games, but still, within the confines of Dragon Age: Origins itself, it’s still fun to see the outcomes of your decisions.)

The story itself is great

I would consider Dragon Age: Origins to have the most straightforward premise of all the Dragon Age games released thus far, with a strong identity linking the different main quests all together. You are a newly recruited Grey Warden, left to unite Ferelden against the big bad Blight after 99% of the Order within the nation is wiped out in a catastrophic battle. You may get caught up in dwarven politics, ancient curses, demonic possession, and plenty more along the way, but no matter where you find yourself, your motivation always falls back to that ultimate responsibility.

The characters are also great

Almost all the companions you’re able to collect along the way are very easy to love, or at least appreciate them for what they are.

Alistair is also a new grey warden. He is struggling with grief over the loss of his mentor, and the weight of having no control over his identity his whole life.

Morrigan is a witch who grew up isolated in the woods with no one but her abusive mother for company. Now she must learn to interact with others, and dependant on the player, perhaps even make a friend, lover… or enemy.

Leliana is a bard from Orlais, whose faith told her to assist the grey warden plight. But beneath the demure outward appearance, she has a much darker past she’s running away from.

Sten is a Qunari warrior who was taught that outside his culture, everything is backwards and nonsense, but he cannot return home until he has restored his soul by recovering his lost sword. Along the way, he may learn to appreciate or despise Ferelden.

Zevran was enslaved by the Antivan Crows as a child and made into an assassin. If the player can chip away at his nonchalant mask, they will find his past has left a lot more scars on him than he thought it safe to admit.

Wynne is a mage from the Circle who is struggling to deal with the nature of age, death, and life purpose.

Shale is a golem who was once under complete and total control by her former master, now learning what it’s like to be free, and wanting to uncover her forgotten past before losing that freedom.

Oghren is there too, unfortunately.

And the player character really feels like they are of your own creation. The choices you make, little and small, offer a lot to shape whatever kind of protagonist you want. Additionally, the benefit of starting the game with a different origin, and playing out that origin before getting recruited into the grey wardens, offers a lot of prompting to get into the roleplay!

The datedness can be easily upgraded with modding anyway

Do you find the combat clunky? There’s mods for that. Do you find the graphics too bland? There’s mods for that. Do you wish you could kiss Alistair as a man or Morrigan as a woman? There’s mods for that, too. Dragon Age: Origins is very easy to mod; most of them you just drop the files into your override folder and start playing. Otherwise, you use the DA Modder app for DAZIP files, which is also not that complicated.

A lot of people consider Skyrim to be dated without mods, too. I personally don’t think there’s anything wrong with appreciating the ability to mod a game, as a positive point.

If you want to play, make sure you use LAA though!

Large Address Aware is a must-have on PC for Dragon Age: Origins.

For GoG or EA App/Origin users: You can just run LAA like normal!

For Steam users: You need THIS first

[jellybonbons]

Calm husband x Assertive wife headcanons

DI!Leon Kennedy x fem!reader

A/N: heavily inspired by safa and fahad’s relationship from dubai bling.

Leon with a wife who is a bit of a firecracker—she's got that bratty streak, a stubborn side, and isn't afraid to speak her mind. But beneath all that, she's also incredibly understanding, compassionate, and fiercely loyal (only to him and her loved ones).

After all he's been through, he's looking for someone who can keep him grounded, bring him back down to earth, or just take charge in the relationship. He wants to be pampered and taken care of.

Leon, who's all about going with the flow, has this "it is what it is" mindset, but you, his wife, are the one who calls the shots on his behalf. As Leon grew older, he stopped giving fucks except for his darling wife.

Take driving, for example. If someone cuts him off, he's the type to shrug it off. But you? You're the one with road rage, ready to give them a piece of your mind. And when his order gets messed up, he'll just eat it, but not you. You'll be marching up to the manager, making sure he gets what he paid for because, hey, it's all about getting your his money's worth.

"Sweetheart, it's fine, really," he said, offering a small smile.

"No, it's not. You specifically said no chilli. And what do they do? Add it in anyway. It's like they're gunning for you," you replied, clearly irritated and a tad dramatic. Poor white man can't handle his spice.

Sometimes you'd push the limit, and he'd have your back. But once you're home and out of the public eye, he'll give you a lecture about where you went wrong. It might take you a minute to actually hear him out because, let's face it, you're stubborn. But he's got his tricks to make sure you eventually listen, if you know what I mean.

People might raise eyebrows at your marriage because you two are total opposites. They whisper nonsense behind your back because of your straightforwardness and confidence, and that's something Leon doesn't let slide. That's when he gives a damn, because nobody gets to badmouth his wife.

"I heard Leon's wife is quite controlling. Poor guy can't even make a decision without her approval," someone remarked, their tone condescending.

"Excuse me," Leon quickly interjected. "Let me make one thing clear: my wife is not controlling. Decisions in our marriage are made together, as equals."

“And if I hear anyone disrespecting her again, there will be consequences. Understood?" His tone was firm as he addressed his subordinates with a hard gaze. 

"Yes sir," the subordinates replied hastily, scrambling to return to their tasks.

This might have been the only instance he'd wield his authority as the top agent, but it was a line he wouldn't allow anyone to cross. 

What really makes your relationship click is the mutual respect and understanding you both share, along with your shared drive and ambition. You get that his job can eat up a lot of his time, with weeks and even months away from home, and sure, it gets to you sometimes. But he's pretty good at making it up to you (material gestures and physical affection).

Leon really appreciates how you get his career demands, and he's all for you pursuing your own career path too. He'd rather see you doing your thing than stuck at home while he's away. However, if and when you decide to have children, he might lean towards the idea of you being a stay-at-home mom, though ultimately, he respects it's entirely your decision.

As for that tracker thing, it's not about being controlling; it's more about being protective. With him going on those risky missions, you like having a way to keep tabs on him and make sure he's safe. At first, he wasn't too keen on the idea, but when you explained how it eases your mind, he kinda got it. Plus, it's kinda fun to mess around with it sometimes, right?

“Hey, where'd you sneak off to earlier?" you asked with a mock sternness, tapping your foot as Leon entered the room. "Your little dot disappeared for a while there."

Leon raised an eyebrow, feigning innocence. "What are you talking about? I've been right here the whole time."

You narrowed your eyes playfully. "Oh really? Because according to the tracker, you vanished into thin air."

A grin spread across Leon's face as he produced a cup of boba from behind his back, "I may have noticed a certain someone was feeling a bit down, so I thought I'd surprise her with her favourite pick-me-up.”

“Aw, Leon!” you exclaimed, jumping on him and nearly causing him to drop the boba and possibly break his back in the process.

[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.

[holmsister]

Ok, my long delayed post about Kabru and the Winged Lion. This does not end here, I'm adding more in a reblog.

Heavy on spoilers. Taking the extra material from @dunmeshistash who I apologise to as usual

Let's start here:

I don't care if you're a wasp you owe him 22 years of alimony

Two important takeaways here:

1) Kabru's hatred of monsters is caused not just by the Utaya catastrophe, but also from the fact that even before that, his unusual eye color was connected to monsters in local lore, and this led to ostracisation and, we can imagine, violence or at least the threat of violence towards him and his mother, serious enough that she escaped to Utaya, aka the place where the dungeon would kill her.

Kabru crucially does not place the fault for this on his father's family, but on himself for being born with 'monstrous eyes'. This is a normal way of reacting to ostracization in children, interiorising instead of projecting the trauma. It's much easier to imagine a world in which there's actually something wrong with you than one in which others might make you suffer for no reason. Monsters are also much more likely to be offered as an explanation by the adults than the actual more realistic explanations (infidelity or rape), which would not be considered appropriate.

This means that indirectly, child Kabru feels that his own 'monstrosity' is responsible for his mother moving to Utaya to protect him and ultimately dying.

2) in the Dungeon Meshi world there are specifically legends about *demon* succubi and incubi (real world lore says succubi prey on men and incubi on women and I assume that's what Laios is referring to with the distinction, but besides that lets assume theyre one and the same), distinct from the *actual monsters* succubi. The demons and monsters have a similar MO of using a person's desires to capture them, but while monster succubi suck a person's vital force, the demons supposedly use the men for their seed and the women for their womb to reproduce (again, completing dungeon meshi lore with bits of real world lore here). Laios, our local monster expert, thinks those demons are just legend. He tells us there are monsters that do use people as incubators for their eggs but I highly doubt that's Kabru's case, uncanny resemblance to a wasp notwithstanding (Laios...)

From here we go to:

Kabru's incredible rizz

This is where the tumblr search function spat in my face and ran away with the rest of my references while giggling. Oh well.

It's noted over and over in canon and extra material that Kabru is charming. More than that: Kabru *will do anything to get someone to like him*.

Worth noting that Daya and Holm *like* Kabru. This is not them disparaging an acquaintance, this is them levelling a criticism at a good friend, a criticism that seems to have been levelled at him before even ("it's no surprise...").

So, important takeaway: Kabru isn't just charming in general, he VERY SPECIFICALLY makes an effort to be charming. He needs people to like him, to trust him, and in order to obtain this, he's willing to lie and pretend.

Like with the Canaries: he needs them to trust him so they will keep him privy to their plans. So he plays up the poor innocent baby orphan angle:

And with Laios? The what (pretending to like monsters) we know, but why?

Kabru thinks Laios is the only one who can conquer the dungeon without the elves or the dwarves intervening and taking control. He is however very worried about his motivation. He wants to know why Laios is going so deep into the dungeon - beyond wanting to save his sister. What motivates him? Can he be trusted?

In the Toshiro chapters we find out that he has been trying to get in contact with him for weeks, possibly months, but this is the first time he has had a real possibility to meet him, and in order to make sure to leave a positive memory and possibly be an influence in the future, he pretends to be aligned with Laios' as much as possible, including hiding his hatred of monsters. I have written tons on this that has now been lost to tumblr like tears in the rain, but: I do not joke when I say that I think Kabru is flirting with Laios before and after the harpy egg incident. Let's be clear: Kabru's intentions are not romantic at this point. But he has noticed how lovestruck Laios was with Toshiro before their confrontation, and he's thinking, well, if I can get him to develop a similar crush on me, I can probably get him to listen to me more easily. Like I can mince words and put things in scary quotes but that's straight up what's happening. Kabru is trying to establish a close bond that wasn't there before: it might not be necessarily sexual, but it's definitely a type of seduction.

It kinda works.

The rest in a reblog because I ran out of space.

[a-b-riddle]

Different Tastes: John & his Sweetheart

The '141' stops as soon as they are back home. After that, they are just close friends. Simon, John, Kyle and Johnny had managed to settle down and find themselves sweet little things. All who adore their brave men and all who share different tastes

In this 'series', it's essentially bits of each of the 141 one and their kinks they have with their partners. With that being said, I don't really care if you think that Soap is submissive or Ghost is into CNC/Primal play. That's great. But in this fantasy, this is what it is. It's what I wanted to write. If you want Kyle Garrick to be a pleasure Dom and John to be a Daddy Dom. Cool. Go find other fictions that write that, or be the one to write them. I'm not going to argue about what kinks they would really have.

CW: NSFW. aniligus on male and female anatomy. D/s dynamics. Name calling. Degradation. Oral. Humiliation. Aftercare. Mentions of pornography. Not establishing safe-words. Poor understanding of establishing BDSM boundaries too late. (Not in a non-con way. But two people who don't really have prior experience to BDSM).

MINORS DNI

John and his girl are perfect for each other. For his career, it's very difficult to turn the Captain mode 'off'. He's used to giving orders and taking control over situations. It had been a problem in all of his previous relationships.

So when he found you, his perfect girl, he would have moved the moon if it meant making you happy. Add into the fact that you did like to switch your brain on autopilot and let John control mostly everything, it worked out well for both of you.

Where do you want to eat tonight?

What do you think I should wear?

I'm getting kind of sick of my hair? What do you think? Longer, shorter? Darker? Lighter?

You always relied on his opinion and followed it.

John couldn't get enough. You never got sick of hearing his thoughts and opinions. You didn't get pissed when he gave you what sounded very much like an order. To you it was John being John. He didn’t simply stop being a Captain when he wasn’t in the field and you were content with that. Liked it even.

But soon enough his bossing around had taken you both down a slippery slope. You had always wanted to explore BDSM and each order in your everyday life made you fantasize about John as a Dominant. Your sex life with John was already fantastic and he always took the lead anyway. So it felt only natural to add-in some kinkier aspects. John wasn't opposed to tying you up. Dishing out occasional discipline when you did something wrong until you ultimately admitted you hated it.

You felt when he 'punished' you, you disappointed him. John's palms started to itch when you confessed that you would much rather him spank you simply because he wanted to. So he did. Whenever he pleased. Often bending you over the counter and giving you a few swats. Your pussy already dripping for him by the time he was finished.

Deeper and deeper you dove down to more than just tying you up and spanking your ass until your juices practically leaked down to your thighs. Service submission had been what you liked the most. If John told you to be on your knees when he got home with a whiskey neat in one hand and a plate of food in the other, you did it.

When you told him this, he started casually mentioning what kind of wedding ring styles you liked.

Eventually you admitted you like being degraded.

"I know you love me," you said one night. Lazily sitting on the couch with John after a dinner date with Kyle and his girlfriend. "And respect me." Butterflies fluttered uncomfortably in your stomach. You didn’t want John to think you liked being abused per se, but this is something you’ve wanted to try with him for so long. "but I don't always need to feel like I’m respected during sex."

John didn't pull his arm off of you as he turned to face you better. His head tilting to the side when he asked you to elaborate. You felt your cheeks heat up as you told him how you wanted him to treat you like a toy. That during a scene, you wanted to feel like he had total control over your body. You could outline actions and phrases you were okay with if it made him feel better about doing it. Even developing safe words.

There hadn't been a need for safe words up until this point. If you asked John to stop, he stopped. If you complained about something hurting, he still stopped and either readjusted, or ended the scene. But this time you confessed that you didn't want ‘no’ to be an option. No felt like you weren't being his good girl. You knew it didn’t make you bad for stopping but it just helped in some weird way you couldn’t quite explain.

He agreed. First came the colors. Then the limits. And most importantly, the fantasies.

After that John finally admitted that he wanted to try anal play on you since you didn't list it as a limit. He’s always fantasized about it, but he had always felt uncomfortable asking you. At first you thought he simply meant a finger up your ass. Some poking and prodding that led up to anal.

However, with the new found confidence to truly divulge his desires to you. John laid it all out.

Price knows what he likes and he absolutely loves worshipping any part of you he can get his hands or mouth on.

The first time he ate your ass it quite literally stole your breath. He had you bent over his desk; his scattered reports long forgotten. You had just gotten home from work. He heard the opening and shutting of the door before grabbing his phone. He had texted you to come into his office in 30 minutes.

Your outfit is on the bed. I’m in my office. Bring me a drink. Daddy feels like drinking some whiskey and eating a peach.

That was your signal. You were a nervous fucking wreck as you got ready.

Before you knew it, he had you bent over with two fingers in your cunt, rubbing that sweet spot while his tongue explored a place no one else ever had.

Months laters, neither of you were no longer shy about John taking you however he wanted. Whether that was hogtied with your ass in the air or you humping his boot when he ordered you to show him how much of a desperate little slut you were.

He loved seeing you so desperate for him. He was obsessed in the way you tensed when he had you bent over. Licking a long stripe from your clit all the way to your puckered hole before settling there.

What was once an occasional thing became a weekly occurrence.

As expected, the two of you eventually tried anal after realizing how good his tongue felt in your ass. The first time he fucked your ass he spent what felt like forever working his thick fingers inside of you before finally working your way up to take his cock. He refused to have such an intimate first thing be in any sort of scenario where he wasn't soft and loving. If you wanted it to be degrading, it would just have to wait.

John was a stern man, but he took care of you. This wasn't something that would be initially pleasant for you and he was damned and determined to make this a good experience by the end of it.

Because of the lack of pressure he put on you to just take it, you had loved it. Even craved it now. You loved when he called you a pathetic little whore after you followed his order of bending over and spreading your ass cheeks for him. You loved when he told you how pretty you looked before landing a glob of spit on your puckered asshole. You loved how he made you beg him to fuck your ass when it was that time of the month; that you were so desperate for his cock you will take it in any hole.

But funny enough, as much quality time John seemed to have with your asshole, you can't really remember if you've ever seen his. Sure, you’ve seen his bare ass sauntering around the house and in the shower, but he’s never been in a compromising position while naked.

Even funnier, you're not sure if you've ever really seen a guy's asshole. So down the rabbit hole of pornhub you went until you found what eating ass was also known as.

Rimming.

And more importantly, how men were rimmed. Your curiosity had eventually grown to wondering what it was like. What would it be like?

So you just asked him.

At first he laughed, assuming you were joking. But then you shamelessly admitted to finding it hot. You confessed how the porn you’ve been watching had pretty much centered around male worship. Although the underarm area and feet were usually something you skipped over, seeing women on their knees giving rimjobs was something that made your core ache when you thought about doing it with John.

To say he was flustered was an understatement. He tried to dissuade you. Insisting that it was, well, gross were his exact words. When a flash of hurt crossed your face he realized his mistake.

It wasn’t that he thought the act itself was gross per se. He felt as though he was gross. "Too gross to let a pretty little thing like you do that." Yet it didn’t deter you from showing him how much you wanted him.

With a little bit of assurance that it’s something you wanted to do, not just reciprocate what he had been doing, he relented. Although, having you on your knees, hump his boot practically begging to with tears in your eyes did make him believe you actually wanted this. John loved when you begged him, but always felt the need to tell you yes when he wasn't serving as your dominant.

Yes. John loved taking charge, but he hated telling you no when you hardly ever asked for anything.

So. It was a safety measure John and you had put into place. When you wanted something that he may say no to because he felt as if it would degrade you as a partner, you didn’t ask as his partner; you asked as his submissive. This put in the acknowledgment that he wasn't making the decision as a partner. John was going to do what he thought best, whether or not you agreed to it. You always set the precent, gave him the permission to be the one to make the decisions. It showed him that you trusted him and whatever he decided.

John always felt more freely when you had gotten in your sub space. He felt more confident in telling you no or giving you orders. He had spent so long being the one to call the shots in his career, he was always afraid of his domineering nature taking control in the relationship.

Your confidence in him meant everything.

He had just gotten home from an extended stay on base. Usually you were able to get a facetime or a call here and there, but besides the occasional texts you were met with radio silence for almost five days.

It wasn't until he came home Saturday just before lunch. You had snacked all day, suddenly feeling guilty you hadn't even gotten groceries for the week. You offered to order something when he told you he hadn't eaten lunch, but he declined.

"C'mere, sweetheart." He ordered pointing right at his boots. A soft smile played on his lips as you sank down to your knees and crawled over to him. John took a deep breath. Reminding himself he can't fuck you right now. Not when he finally built up the courage to do what he was about to do.

“I need to freshen up." He said, squatting down until he was almost eye level with you. "Open." He ordered. Without hesitation, you opened your mouth, tongue out prepared to let him do whatever he wanted. He gently grabbed your tongue, holding it between his thumb and finger before giving it a light squeeze. Drool already slipping out of your mouth. "When I get out of the shower, I expect you to be in our room, on all fours with this pretty little tongue to worship me. Understand, sweetheart?"

Your eyes widened as you felt your core involuntarily clenching around nothing. Fuck. This was so hot. Fuck. This was happening. It was happening.

John stood at his full height before heading to the master bedroom. You waited until you heard the clicking of the door before practically sprinting behind him.

You sat on your knees, anxiously listening to the sound of the running water from the bathroom. You wondered how he would discuss it. Both of you played out possible scenarios and weeded out ones you were absolutely not okay with doing.

One scenario you agreed on was you laying on your back with your head hanging off the bed. John would face fuck you for a bit before he got into a sixty-nine position. He would have the view of you playing with your greedy little pussy. You would lap at him like a pathetic whore while he stroked his cock before he finally came all over your tits.

One thing John didn't feel comfortable doing was simply bending over on his hands and knees. Hiking up a leg, sure. But something about the position made him feel vulnerable and he just didn't want to try it.

Waiting patiently by the foot of the bed. On your hands and knees like a good girl, you head the water shut off.

Fresh out of the shower, John walked over to you before sitting down on the bed. You waited for his order. Never jumping the gun and simply taking him the moment he waved his cock in front of your face.

He spread his thighs apart, letting his limp cock hang near the edge of the bed. "Put my cock in your mouth, but don't suck. Just want you to warm him up a bit." You immediately take him in your mouth without hesitation. Loving the way you feel his cock slowly harden.

You maintain eye contact, trying hard not to move your tongue. Fighting every urge to start sucking and being a good little whore. When he finally give you permission, he still sets the pace. His hand firm on the back of your neck.

"Go at your own pace, sweetheart." He said, kissing your forehead. "Just remember," He reminded, his voice still gentle. "Mo fingers and stop if you need to, yeah?" You nod, remembering that he's doing this for you.

He scooted down further on the bed before laying on his back. Legs spread.

You weren't really sure where to start. So you just started slow. Built up to the same way John did to you when he was the one licking your ass. You started with soft kisses. Letting your teeth graze over the skin of his thighs, getting closer and closer to where you wanted to be.

You felt him stiffen as you got closer. You gave a soft kiss before waiting for him to tell you to stop.

He doesn't.

You continue.

You start soft. Closing your eyes and licking and mouthing at his asshole like you were making out with it.

"Fuck." You hear him curse, but he doesn't tell you to stop.

"Can I please rub my pussy, Sir?" You asked, your hands aching to touch your wet cunt.

"Yes." He granted, his hand starting to slowly stroke his cock. "But you still need permission to cum." He reminded before closing his eyes and letting you continue.

With low curses and gasps falling from his mouth you became more and more enthralled. Your face pressing harder and harder against him. Trying to get your tongue as deep inside him as you possibly could.

The humiliation of it all making you feel already so close to falling over the edge. Your fingers rubbed methodical circles around your clit as you began mindlessly nodding your head along, tongue sticking out; lapping at his asshole like the stupid little bitch you were.

“You like that, huh? Licking me like the dirty little slut that you are." He said, knowing that was something you wanted to be told.

“Yes, Sir." You admitted, only breaking away briefly to answer him before resuming servicing him.

“Damn fucking right.” He growled out. "That's my good little whore. Worshipping my fucking asshole." His words made you clench around nothing. Making you wish you had asked to use a dildo or the fucking machine instead.

Next time. You thought.

"Can-fuck-" He pants tugging harder at his cock, his orgasm building. "Can I push your head, sweetheart?" It wasn't something the two of you had went over, but he wanted to be sure. During blowjobs were fine, but you had never done this before.

"Yes! Please!" You pant out before feeling his hand grab a hold of the back of your head and pulling you deeper into him.

You manage to spit, making it sloppier, wetter. Easier for you face to glide and knowing it probably felt better for him too. It's not too long before Price finds himself grinding pathetically against your face. "Fuck, sweetheart." He pants. "Fuck that feels so good."

You could barely breathe. Your mouth too busy lapping away at his asshole to bother breathing. Your nose pressed too hard against his taint to get any air. You decided if this is how you die... well, you wouldn't hate it. Hard

"Can I cum? Can I cum?" You repeated. Your voice muffled, but John knew what you wanted.

"Cum, but don't you fucking stop." He ordered. His grip tightening, legs beginning to tense. "I'm so close. Don't stop, sweetheart."

You kept going. Your jaw beginning to become sore as you kept going. Not even stopping when you felt John's body shake. Not stopping when your own orgasm took hold of you. Tears falling from the intensity of it all.

Not stopping when you heard him release a string of curses and praises. Not stopping when you felt his cum landing on the top of your head. Only slowing when he began to relax. Only stopping until he finally pulled you away.

You sat on your heels. Hands placed on your thighs. Waiting for him to look up at you. You were in position just waiting for fall apart. Trying so hard to be his good girl.

Finally he collected himself enough to manage to sit up. He looked down at you, marveling at the sight.

Mascara smeared. Face covered in spit. His cum now dripping from your head down to your face. Fuck, you looked beautiful.

Fuck.

Your hair.

Was that something you agreed on doing?

Fuck.

You had both agreed on him coming in you, on your face, tits, pussy or ass. Hell, you even agreed to lick it off of him or if any of it fell onto the hardwood. But you never went over if coming in your hair.

"Sorry, sweetheart." He apologized, swiping at a string of cum on your eye brown, threatening to make its' way into your pretty eyes. "Should have asked if your hair was okay." You smiled hazily at his concern, but honestly thought it was a little funny. This man pushed your face into his asshole while he called you filthy things and he was worried that you were concerned over a little cum in your hair.

"Let's get you cleaned up, yeah?" All you could do was nod as John hauled you to your feet and practically carrying you to the shower.

Tenderly, he got the oil based cleanser and began to clean your face as gentle as he could. It wasn’t methodical and not necessarily the best way, but he was too worried about rubbing your face too harshly knowing how raw it probably felt.

You didn’t care. You always marveled in the tenderness of his touch after an intense scene. Basked in his words of praise and adoration after he debased and dehumanized you. It was therapeutic. To be taken so low only to have the same man build you back up.

He spoke lowly in your ear. “Did so well for me, sweet girl.” After he ran the soft spray of water over your face, he pulled you tightly to his chest. You felt his lips press on your wet hair. “Made me feel so fucking good.”

You felt your knees weaken, but John continued to pamper you. Being sure to take extra care in washing your face again until at the remanets of your messed up make up was gone.

"You liked it?" You asked, closing in your eyes. Relishing in his touch.

"Yes, baby." He answered. "I loved it." Your chest swelled with pride. He liked it. He liked your fantasy too.

"Would you wanna do it again?" You asked, praying the answer was yes.

"I'd love that." You hummed in contentment as he turned you around, now starting on your hair.

Although John had never came in your hair before, he had learned your washing routine to the point of perfection and honestly his touch felt so much better than your own. It was a way of aftercare now, but initially he learned when you had hit a sub drop.

Neither of you knew that it even existed before it was too late. And two days after an intense scene you still hadn't washed your hair.

When he finally finished, he grabbed one of the microfiber towels you used to dry your hair. He methodically and gently squeezed out the access water before wrapping you in a huge towel. He stayed behind in the shower for only a minute to wash away your spit before joining you.

He took your hand, leading you to the sinks before turning you around to face him. You hated this part. It was when you were the most exhausted and you wanted to just crawl into bed. "Gotta dry it, Sweetheart." He said, sitting you down on the bathroom counter. "Just relax. Let me handle it."

So you did. You let John handle it. Let him have the power. It always worked out better for you anyway.

Eventually, John was satisfied and picked you back up. You were half asleep, barely holding on when he tucked you in. He pulled your back close to his chest.

It was nearing the end of your aftercare. John was scrolling on doordash, trying to find something that would be good to eat as he always did, asking for input. Sometimes you offered it. Mostly you said anything he wanted was fine. He always made sure it would be delivered after an hour. Giving you enough time to bask in the post-coital cuddles.

He continued talking. How much he enjoyed it. What he wouldn't mind trying next. Your eye were growing heavier and heavier the more he spoke. A brief moment of silence passed before he spoke again.

“You know,” he started. “Johnny was mentioning something about pet play with his girl.” It wasn't surprising. The four men of the 141 weren't shy in telling the others what them and the missus had been up to in the bedroom. Even going as far as to let the girls play together, but making it a point to never share.

None of them had any interest in letting another man touch what belonged to them, but they didn't mind letting the girls indulge in a little girl time.

“Heaven knows that MacTavish needs to be collared.” You said, feeling the edges of sleep beginning to take over your vision. You tried to stifle a yawn as you spoke, to no avail while John barked out a laugh.

“Who says Johnny's the dog?” He asked.

[drarryspecificrecs]

2024.09 ~ Top 10 longest fics posted on AO3

1. Take Me to Voldemort by @sweetiecutiedarling [M, 702k]

How did everyone miss it? That dark look in Potter's eyes? They were all too happy to gloss over his insistence that the Dark Lord had returned, acting as if the wild claims were endearing and not signs of a manic break. [...] Draco never could have predicted Potter's particularly daft and entirely sincere response, especially considering that Potter did not even take a breath before saying it. "Let's do it. Take me to Voldemort."

2. Twin flames by Wizarding_Whatif [M, 561k]

After the war has ended, Harry finds himself at a loss for what to do with himself. [...] Draco Malfoy is also asking the big questions in life after the war. [...] They both get invited back after a year of rebuilding to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. [...] This year, however, the returning students are to be resorted, Harry is but Draco is not. This year an entirely different adventure awaits the two men. With an ancient love spell cast on Harry before School the unknown consequences grow steeper as the year goes on, leaving the entire wizarding world on the edge of their brooms for news of their savior. Can a villain become a hero? Will the hero get a happy ending?

3. The Wrong Sort by ladybirdlad [?, 135k] *typo

After Dolores Umbridge becomes Hogwarts’ new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Harry decides something must be done about her and her appalling tutelage and misinformation. Surprisingly, the hatred of their new simpering pink professor spreads further than just Harry and his friends. Far enough that even those who he once considered enemies are now tentative allies. But how much is unity against Umbridge and how much is something more?

4. Dreary by raspberrybalm [E, 177k]

A vile of Felix Felicis, a Resurrection Stone, and a blond walk into an Avada… The punchline? Draco's life, it would seem. He can't win for losing. His mother's gone, his girlfriend's in love with his mate, and The Order won't take him no matter how many baddies he slaughters. The solution? A Time Turner. The solution to the consequential havoc of messing with time? Harry Potter, of course. Only, the bloke's been dead for fifteen years. Good thing Draco eats Death for breakfast.

5. Pieces Of Me by @shewhomustnotbenamed [E, 88k]

Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter have never been friends. After finding themselves isolated from others due to their own specific problems, they somehow connect. While Harry ignores his issues with addiction, and Draco disguises just how horrible his relationship is, a friendship blooms between them. Draco must choose between the life he's known for the past five years with Cormac McLaggen, or the life that Harry offers him, and the consequences that follow.

6. Ouroboros by inkysand [T, 81k]

“But now we’re all trapped in this place with Bellatrix lurking around,” Ron said once he’d calmed down. “And it sounds like Malfoy’s all set on fixing the Compact. But what’s that going to do for You-Know-Who? If we get bumped out of here, do we go back and get killed by a dark wizard who’s got all his power back and is already in control at Hogwarts?” None of them had answers to those questions.

7. Silver Tone Rich Kids by @shelvesuponshelves [M, 73k]

Best friends since they were four, Slytherins Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy have been the shitty spoiled rich kids of Hogwarts for years. But when Harry decides he wants to improve himself and Draco can't get on board, Draco's world begins to fall apart when Harry moves on to new friends. [...]

8. A Beginner's Guide to Living by kzwjhkdo [E, 62k]

In the aftermath of the war to end all wars, Harry had dutifully tried to follow the path set out for him. He'd tried to hack it as a wizard cop. He'd tried heterosexuality. He'd tried to exist in the public eye as a hero, saviour, beloved golden boy. He'd tried. Ultimately, he'd only lasted a few months before he'd disappeared into thin air. It's been fifteen years, now—it's been precisely fifteen years, six months, and twenty days. A lot has changed. Draco is a photographer, working with Pansy Parkinson at her fashion magazine. He has a potion business on the side. He's grown, he has a carefully cultivated life, and he's sure to have a very normal reaction to seeing Harry Potter again.

9. Infairitance by @toxik-angel [T, 61k]

It's August 1999, and Harry only plans on returning Malfoy's wand to him in his weird little potion shop. The Malfoy he meets there is not the Malfoy he expected. He also was not expecting to see Fred's... unanimated corpse.

10. The Marauders and Harry's 8th year by @ghbookfreak [G, 59k]

A story where the quartet gets transported through time to Harry's 8th year at Hogwarts.

—

※ Word count: 1k ~ 15k

※ Word count: 15k ~ 40k

cheeks pink in the twinkling lights by mr_prongs [E, 21k]

Entrapment by @mykkitno [M, 19k]

Explosive Encounters by TotallyNotMagic [M, 31k]

Harry Potter and the Snake in the Park 'Round his House by @sillspore [M, 30k]

Have you not realised? by Millsy [?, 15k]

Liquid Silk by @coffeedrgn87 [E, 16k]

Long-term by Plume1304 [M, 17k]

Love at it's Kore by @sightedkarma [M, 39k]

Potions, Poisons, and Other Cures for Heartache by semperubi [?, 37k]

retrogade echoes by sectumsempra [E, 35k]

Shelter from the Storm by @actual-howlinglikeaseaturtle [T, 20k]

This isn't the Window to your Soul (Even if you think it is) by @emeraldvssilver [?, 15k]

—

Ongoing Fest/Exchange

※ Fics would be listed elsewhere.

Drarry Let’s Play Fest 2024 | @drarry-lets-play

HD Hurt-Comfort Fest 2024 | @hd-hurtcomfort-fest

HP Drizzle Fest 2024 | @hpdrizzle

HP Horrible Goose Fest 2024 | @horriblegoosefest

Unleashed! Fest 2024 | @unleashed-fest

Bring Back The Porn Challenge (1)

First Time Exchange 2024 (1)

Freaky Friday 2024

[furiousgoldfish]

When you're a kid going trough a scary, non-understandable traumatic experience, your child mind contextualizes it in a way that doesn't seem that scary. Like we don't tell small children when their relatives are dead, they're just traveling; it's easier for a child's mind to comprehend that someone is just gone for a while, and will be back.

When you're a small child living in abuse, not only does it seem normal to you, but your brain will find a way to put it into context that you can understand and live with. Your worst experiences of abuse might be foggy, forgotten, blocked off, or seem like it was a dream; not something you need to worry about or be wary of. Your parent, who violently attacks you, calls you names, turns on you and at times feels very dangerous and hateful, that's not their real self! They just 'turn' into this other person, and the times when they do that just need to be not taken seriously, you firmly believe that their true self is safe, okay to be around, necessary to love and understand at all costs, and not someone to be afraid of. You might want to keep all the bad memories away whenever things are good, so you'd be able to enjoy the moment when it feels normal, non-scary, so whenever they're not aggressive and scary, it feels like they never were in the first place. You feel like those times are made up, unreal, something your mind refuses to linger on.

Sometimes this defense turns against you. It can turn an experience out of your control, into something you could have potentially controlled if only you did things differently. If you never made a mistake, never broke anything, never said or did that one thing that set the abuse off - it wouldn't have happened. And so you have to focus on what you're doing wrong in order to 'prevent' future events of abuse. It ultimately plays into the idea that the abuse is 'your fault', and invokes deep feelings of guilt and shame; you end up feeling like you're the one causing yourself all that damage.

Abusers know this child mind defense, and fully expect to get away with anything they've done, by insisting the child imagined or dreamed it, and it didn't really happen. They know the event was traumatic for the child and makes them look bad, so their best luck is to convince the child it really was just made up, and to never recall it or show any consequence of it. They even go as far as trying to convince, now adult child, that the parent's own actions of abuse, were the child's fault. Something an adult can tell right away is not true, because you can now connect a cause and consequence, and you know a child is incapable of controlling adults in any way. But being told something as despicable as that will cast doubt and deep emotional damage.

Every time such experience is suspended and blocked off, the child loses a bit of their vitality, energy, health, trust, feeling of safety, feeling of connection. When these experiences accumulate, eventually the child might experience dissociation, or a full amnesia, not even being aware that anything more is happening, because they cannot handle even one more event of abuse. And these experiences won't stay suspended forever; soon they'll cause the development of anxiety, depression, ptsd, cptsd, and other related disorders. And eventually the truths can no longer stay hidden, the child will remember and struggle to add new context, to realize what exactly happen, because now they have a chance of knowing the truth and surviving it.

If someone attempts to make you feel like something they did to you as a child, was your fault, this is what they're trying to push you into. They'd prefer you never being able to put your life and experiences into context, never be able to recover from keeping trauma inside, just so they wouldn't have to look at what they've done to you and take accountability. If someone is telling you that the events you remember are made up, imagined, a dream, something you shouldn't think and talk about - but it's only like that when you're remembering abuse, they're trying to use your own defenses you had as a child against you. You needed to believe it back then in order to survive it, but you need to correctly contextualize it now, if you ever hope to feel okay again.

You can trust in your own mind, and your own defenses to get you trough this. You are not wrong in looking back and seeing things a different way. You are right say 'that was fucked up'. They shouldn't have done that to me and they know that.

[animeyanderelover]

Hiii, I don't see much of Jujutsu Kaisen so that's what I'll be requesting:

1. Happy deathday (Gojo, sukuna, nanami, Mahito, the 1st years)

2. Their reaction to s/o being able to nullify their ability (Gojo, sukuna, Mahito)

You can add other characters you'd like and think might be interesting.

Tw: Yandere themes, toxic relationship, possessive behavior, obsession, delusional behavior, manipulation, gaslighting, clinginess, paranoia, controlling behavior, sadism, isolation

S/o can nullify their abilities

Ryomen Sukuna

🗾I can see his s/o very well being assigned to Yuji as soon as the boy has swallowed Sukuna’s finger. The King of Curses himself doesn’t do much besides cackling over you as he sees you as nothing more but a mere babysitter. It has definitely happened that his mouth has popped up on Itadori’s face, tauntingly questioning you about what you hope to do once he actually gains control. You never appear shaken though, always fairly calm and composed as you reply to him before Yuji slaps the mouth shut and apologizes to you. Sukuna is always watching and he definitely observes your confident exterior which does elicit his curiosity. What exactly can you do? What are your abilities? He wants to test you, to see if you are only bark and no bite or if you can stand for your words. Yuji’s naïve wish to protect people is exploited for Sukuna’s own use and soon he snatches the chance to gain control of Yuji whilst he is in your presence. He is fully prepared to kill you if you don’t prove yourself.

🗾Only that the situation never escalates to a battle as all you do is touch him and seal his powers away, forcing him back inside Yuji’s mind. You don’t want to risk any unnecessary destruction. So you just brush him off as nothing? Who do you think you are? It’s a rare humiliation Sukuna has to suffer on that day as you aren’t even willing to fight him and label it as unneeded. He’s seething, his words from that day on filled with a lot more spite but you always reply with an equal amount of sass and snarl. He really has to work on that mouth on yours. As infuriated as he is though, he can’t deny that there isn’t a spark of attraction within this all though. He definitely has to put you in your place but your unique ability to cancel someone else’s technique is, even if quite plain-looking, definitely the ultimate counter against anyone. You’d definitely be useful in his later schemes to help him to regain all of his fingers and to get his original body back.

🗾The verbal banter between the two of you keeps going on as both of you essentially see who can deliver the heavier blow with their insults. A part of Sukuna is definitely yearning for a chance to get another chance to fight you physically but for now he has to be satisfied with this. He can’t deny it though, he is enjoying this by now quite a lot. He’ll tolerate this bratty and rebellious behavior of yours for as long as he is stuck inside the boy’s mind. As soon as Uraume has revealed themself, Sukuna is ordering his servant to keep a special eye on you for as long as he still hasn’t regained a body over which he has full control. You absolutely can’t die now that he has gotten so incredibly interested in you. As much as he would love to search for you right now and get his rematch, he feels his control slowly fading away. There is a sadistic grin on his face though as he takes one final glance at the havoc he has caused in Shibuya. He can’t wait to see your reaction of despair, knowing that it was your job to prevent something like this from happening.

Gojo Satoru

🩵He has always had a particular interest in you. Although you are a low-ranked sorcerer, there has always been something that has made Gojo’s day that much more delightful. Is it your frustrated facade whenever he is teasing the living daylight out of you? Is it the way you pout whenever you feel a bit neglected? Whatever it is, Gojo is absolutely obsessed about it and just can’t stop himself from always following you around. He is the worst attention-seeker possible and he either annoys you to have you focus on him or he is being more considerate and buys you expensive presents to gain your attention and maybe even some praise and a kiss out of gratitude. Honestly, he wouldn’t have minded if it would have stayed that way. But then you just had to develop this Domain Expansion of yours, didn’t you? An ability that completely eradicates all Cursed Energy within except your own, that drains the energy of all foreign living beings within and only strengthens you in return. Suddenly your popularity breaks through the roof.

🩵Suddenly Gojo’s perception of you changes as well. It is a development he doesn’t want to accept. You were supposed to only be this adorable sorcerer he knew about and paid attention to. You weren’t supposed to be the center of attention, be it good or bad. You weren’t supposed to be like him. He knows that the stronger and unique one’s powers are, the more likely they are to be targeted by those who fear such strength. Even if he has no proof for it, Gojo’s paranoia suddenly appears. What if you are really targeted by someone? What if you are killed by someone? The change in atmosphere when he is around you is palpable as he is a lot more rigid and his blue eyes are always darting around as if he fears that someone or something will come for your life at any moment. For a little while this is all he mainly thinks about as he tries to butter up to you by telling you about the experiences he has had as a child to justify his overly clingy behavior. It isn’t long until he has another realization though. Your abilities would even render his powers useless.

🩵Gojo’s identity has always tied into being the strongest, about being the one who no one can beat. Now you exist though. Now you are there and can eradicate his abilities. What does that make him then? Is he even himself if he isn’t the strongest? A part of Satoru is tempted to ask you to show him your Domain Expansion in the little hope that your powers won’t work on him. The other part of him is too frightened to do so as he doesn’t want his belief up until now to be destroyed. Who is he if he isn’t the one everyone has always thought him to be? The man is terrified, terrified as he realizes that the one person who could most likely kill him is you. That isn’t who you were supposed to be. You were supposed to be only his. Desperation and bitterness collide with each other as Gojo wishes that you would have just stayed that overlooked and weak sorcerer you used to be. You don’t need any Domain Expansion. You don’t even need to be a sorcerer. You only need him. Satoru will help you to realize this.

Mahito

🔷Mahito has always been carefree and goofy even whilst committing atrocities by toying around with humans. He has always gotten a good laugh out of Yuji’s moral lessons, about the boy’s anger whenever he transfigured and killed humans. It has always been fun and that is largely because so far Mahito has never been seriously beaten. Until he crosses paths with you. A freelancer of a sorcerer who isn’t really working for the Jujutsu society. It isn’t his first time that he has fought against a sorcerer and in hindsight his mistake was taunting you even whilst you weren’t willing to fight him. Of course he will never blame it on himself that he pushed you over your limit until you ran out of patience. Soon he is crying and screaming as he tries to scramble away from you yet without any success as he is in your Domain Expansion. Quivering pupils look at you as you calmly walk over, your fists stained in his blood as you look at him with chilling disregard. He isn’t even worth killing.

🔷Mahito is unable to live with the humiliation you give him on that day. Never before has he been on the weak side before, never before has he been on the side that suffers. That’s why he is unable to process it all. He’s deeply scarred after that encounter with you. Partially he is utterly and partially he yearns for revenge, traumatized as he can’t and won’t accept how you treated him on that day as if he was the disposable toy. Mahito initially becomes more obsessed with the thought of forcing you to cower on all four in front of him. He needs to correct his view on the world that has been shattered ever since you cursed his life. His body is still far too terrified to get close to you so the curse starts stalking you from a safe distance and he hates how his body always freezes in fear and panic if your head turns around, petrified that you might have sensed him. He hates what he has become of you, petty hatred all directed against you for this humiliation he had to endure because of you. Mahito wants to see you suffer even more than he did.

🔷Hatred soon gradually weakens with time though as Mahito starts getting interested in you. Initial plans to kill closed ones of you fail as he soon comes to realize that you are a true lone wolf. Your life is lonely and isolated from others as you like to keep to yourself. Why is that? Is there a deeper lying fear? Or does nobody like you? It is almost as if Mahito is actively trying to find something to pity you for all to boost his own sense of superiority and confidence. You really don’t seem to have anybody in your life and suddenly he is very adamant to keep it that way. Someone like you doesn’t deserve anyone and he even takes it a step further by interfering to the point where other sorcerers start distrusting you. He wants to see you lonely. He wants to find a way to break you because only then can he feel whole again. Don’t worry though. He’ll gladly keep you as soon as he has found out how to completely take away your abilities. He’s sure that you’ll be at your cutest when you’re at your weakest and most vulnerable point.

[ancientgoddessofegypt]

Astrology Observations Pt. 10 Losing Control

Mars in scorpios intensity is unmatched. There sex appeal comes through when they are their most boastful and confident. There power is in their rage, their silence and their need to express there selves through physical activity. These angels must allow for all of their darkness to come through in order to receive full control over it. When they force themselves to not look into their darkness, they are blocking change from coming in. The ugly truths of their power comes in and they must reckon with that 'devil' at all times. At some point, they will know that the devil that they see is the power, change, and evolution they need to move forward.

All in all, mars in scorpio is in its second rightful home. Mars is the original ruler of scorpio so it works out for these martian babes. They must go through different stages of life learning how to harness this power. Because everyone sees it in them, however it moves so quietly others will begin to test you to see where is it.

Uranus Conjunct Mars individuals have a certain power in their consciousness that puts them up on game faster than others. Its literally levels to this sh*t, and they've got it down packed. In order to move into their highest potential they must be quick on their feet when going into new domains. Their curiosity will be the birth of a new horizon if they live a little. They challenge the status quo by being and doing what they want when they want it. And allowing others to mimic this motion with the help of grasping for air. Their intensity comes from the mind and everything they do has been tested in the dreams & ideas they had before they go for the big one.

However, another thing I've noticed is that sometimes you just have to jump. Just go for it, no thought in it what so ever and thats the BIG one for em. Sometimes you just gotta make that move even if you dont got all the answers. Cause usually uranus/mars doesn't care about the answers, it just cares for the result. Losing control of the mental will allow evolution to change course, and hopefully a new reality will take shape. Because now they have the abilities to do whatever it is they choose, and the brain power to make things happen.

Venus in Aries mission is to be the most confident, the greatest, and the most liveliest in what they do. Their is a need to be more than what they are at the time, and normally lose control of this feeling and go in for the big one. They never approve of being at the lowest or even third place. They gotta show it off and know that they are the truth. When the world is doubting them they will eat that energy up and transform it into higher power. Their truth is getting used to the world not understanding them, but they make peace with it. This is what makes them so attractive over all, because the world changes in their favor with time. When they decide to let go of control on how the world views them and ultimately how they view themelves, they will grow into their personalities and become a self-master in what they wish to have for themselves... And then the world will have to eat in the palm of their hands soon come. ;)

Sun Conjunct Mars... Whew boy. Yall are different. Yall have an incredible force hiding within you but the world doesn't see it yet. You have problems with dealing with this entity that is a fire haven of destruction. The world will call it 'demon', but you will call it 'life'. This world doesn't see the realm of fire in the way that you feel it. In a cage locked away so that the world can feel safer. You remind others of what its like to climb the top of the mountain and reach it with not an inch of sweat down your back. Your caged senses are abilities that can grow and help you navigate earth in multiple ways then one. You're like a creature that's naturally untamed, but the world has to have a mission in feeling in control.. so they try to take you down with them. Its like bigfoot finally getting control of itself, not playing pretend and being more open to jump the boat. Getting out their and showing your strength even if it hurts others to look. You don't care what the world sees in you but you know the way to the heart. Your mind is capable of bringing its true raw power to the light. This warms up the hearts of many, but intimidates others too. When you lose yourself, you bring back control because theirs so much rare power in you that NEEDS to be in the spotlight. You NEED the world to see your body, to see your mind, your heart, your soul. The world needs inspiration to move better, do more, to be motivated. Thats your spark. Thats your truth.

Taurus Mars - Energy healers. Your gift is through bodily movements. Every touch, every feeling creates a surge of raw energy forming through your body. Your pain can be transmuted into more if you allow your feelings to get the best of you. Don't let go, just allow it to flow within and find power in embracing it. Thats the message.

Sun/Mars Trine & Sextile peeps.. Use that force to drive away any leeches trying to gain power over your life. Your brilliance is jaw dropping, and the waves you create by just being yourself is more than anyone could describe. Be confident in whatever you choose to embark in. Rage is a perfect tool to heal any wounds from the past, and that rage is protection for you in future endeavors and/or people who don't know you enough to try and stop+control you from your calling. Your gift is in getting to the bottom of that massive power and using that energy in an outlet that matches your frequency. Your energy can come by tiny blurts of emotions pushing through to contain more outside force, after-all is done it'll before larger than life. You just have to work with it.

If you want me to explain in more detail, drop a comment below! i'll work with you on getting more insight on these placements. thanks for reading <3