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vidavalor · 7 months ago

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Great Balls of Fire

Ok, I've got a Final 15 theory on the kiss and the elevator and... pie?

This is for-- and in thanks to-- @indigovigilance, @ineffablelunatics and @somehow-a-human, as their metas reminded me of the idea of something in Aziraphale's mouth after the kiss and their talk of ball bearings and The Bullet Catch has eaten my brain alive and so here we are. Thanks also to @kayleefansposts for drawing my attention to 2/3rds of the metas. 🤗

What, exactly, happened in The Final 15? Maybe this...

As observed by many of us and discussed in the metas of the people I mentioned above, Aziraphale visibly has something in his mouth when he pulls back from the kiss. We also see him move the object around in his mouth-- or, we do, if his expression doesn't distract us first.

Because it's on his tongue, this isn't just light being weird or showing a filling or something. This is, clearly, a piece of metallic-colored something in Aziraphale's mouth. @indigovigilance pointed out how aspects of this parallel aspects of The Bullet Catch and I would agree with that. @ineffablelunatics, off of @somehow-a-human's post on the object, said it looked like a ball bearing and that's actually when I realized that I think the show might have subtly told us over the first two seasons what it is. And if it is what I think it is? The object is the reason for Aziraphale's reaction after the kiss-- not the kiss itself.

So, what is it?

To explain that, we have to start with two scenes, one from each season: 1601 and Crowley in Heaven with Muriel in 2.06.

In the 1601 scene, we learned that Crowley & Aziraphale experimented with their powers after they got tired of canceling each other out and that they discovered Heaven's dirty little secret in the process. That secret is that basically the only differences between them are the colors of their feathers and the lack of immunity to hellfire/holy water. Heaven has been telling everyone that some magic was "demonic" and that angels couldn't do it and they also had told everyone that demons no longer possessed angelic powers. Crowley & Aziraphale realized that this was bullshit-- Aziraphale could do temptations and Crowley could still do blessings. It's this discovery that allowed them to start fulfilling each other's assignments. They didn't tell a soul because of the danger of admitting they knew, especially because admitting it would be acknowledging that they had worked together to figure it out. This means that, with the exception of holy water being dangerous to him since he fell, Crowley is effectively still an angel in terms of the power he possesses.

This would mean he can magically make just about anything he could make when he was an angel. It's relevant because Crowley, as we'll see, made the object he slipped into Aziraphale's mouth during the kiss.

When Crowley is in Heaven with Muriel in 2.06, he opens the file on Gabriel's trial, which we are told can only be accessed by "a throne, or a dominion, or above"-- further showing that the truth is that Heaven actually can't strip angels of their power to do miracles. They're just simply telling them that they have done so as a form of social control and casting some to Hell to use them as way to discourage rebellion. This scene also reminds us of Crowley's awareness of this and shows him using his "angelic" powers to get information to help Gabriel.

The same scene with Muriel and Crowley that showed us that Crowley still retains his angelic powers reminds us again of the rank of throne/dominion in Heaven. (I say "throne/dominion" because Muriel's verbal commas and the way the sentence is structured-- along with the scene in S1 when Crowley goes from his throne to dominate his plants lol-- suggests that it is possible to be both ranks of angel at once, which is another topic so we won't go too far into that right now.) Crowley was undoubtedly a throne/dominion-- and it's not even just the fact that he had that hilariously tacky throne in S1. It's relevant here because of ties of throne-related things to what it is that Crowley made and slipped into Aziraphale's mouth.

Thrones are apparently God's chariots. They are concerned with justice and reside in the areas of space "where matter originates"-- which feels very Before the Beginning, right? They are symbolized by big wheels that rotate and by eyes that change color.

Yes, by wheels and eyes that change color... seems very Crowley, no?

The eyes repeat on the symbolic wheels and are in the position of what we on Earth would call ball bearings, apparently looking kind of like this:

...and remember the interconnected, turning wheels in the scroll that Crowley had Aziraphale hold in the moment they met, at the start of 2.01?...

It could be said that Crowley... a throne, a polymath, a scientist, an inventor... a being whose signature thing is the sexiest old car on four wheels... could make ball bearings from his body when he was an angel and, since we know that he still has basically everything but the ability to make holy water from his angel days, it means that he still can make those ball bearings...

...but we also know what else he can make from his body since he's also a demon-- and not just from his hands but from his mouth...

...hellfire.

Yes, I'm saying that it really was a ball bearing in Aziraphale's mouth-- but it was not hollow or empty. Not by a long shot. It was full of hellfire. It wasn't for Aziraphale's memories as Crowley didn't think that Aziraphale had time or opportunity left to extract them.

It was a suicide pill.

The story was calling back to The Original Ineffable Divorce in 1862...

Think about what Crowley saw when he was up in Heaven in S2...

Crowley is the one who put together what happened to Gabriel. He watched the video of Gabriel's sham "trial" and he saw The Metatron basically order Gabriel killed and cast down through the ranks and he knows that Gabriel only evaded Hell because of how it would have diminished the power of the institution of Heaven to send him there. Crowley knows that Aziraphale does not have this same amount of political power. He knows that The Metatron is a shifty motherfucker and that Michael cannot be counted on. He knows how much danger Aziraphale is in.

So, he takes a page from Lord Beezlebub after seeing that they protected Gabriel with the fly... only it's not exactly the same thing.

Beez's fly was given to Gabriel to help save him. It was a place to store his memories to help protect him long enough to keep him safe until they could make sure he was safe and intact. It worked because Beez and Gabriel had time to make a plan together. By the time Crowley is in Heaven watching the video of what happened to Gabriel and then getting back to the bookshop to sort it all out, there's no time for he and Aziraphale to make a plan. They are not alone again until after "The Metatron" has already shown up and, by then, Aziraphale is already on his way to being lost.

Beez is actually the first character we ever see make their signature thing on-screen and when they do? I mean...

Evocative of a kiss, with that big closeup on Beez's mouth. We watch them push the fly gently out of their mouth with their tongue. It foreshadows Crowley making something in his mouth and ties delivery of it to the kiss. We know that Crowley knows that he can make a single object that is of aspects of both Heaven and Hell combined-- like a ball of hellfire tempered, unless consumed, by a ball bearing.

Plus, earlier in the season, there's Gabriel tying The Fly-- which came about as a result of Beez trying to help him manage his depression by helping him to feel safer-- to metaphorical suicide when he spends the scene where the angels show up chasing it around the bookshop, trying to kill it with one of Aziraphale's Bibles, symbolizing just what Heaven is doing to everyone's mental health here...

But this is just where this possibility starts, really... because why else do I think it's a hellfire-full ball bearing suicide capsule that Crowley gave Aziraphale?

Well, for starters, there is all the holy water that is all over this plot at the end of S2... At the end, Crowley stands in Whickber Street outside The Bentley right across from The Dirty Donkey in a nod to-- among other scenes-- the 1967 scene, when Aziraphale brought Crowley the holy water.

Aziraphale knew that Crowley also secretly wanted holy water as a last resort and Aziraphale initially couldn't handle the idea of losing Crowley and reacted badly before eventually coming around to the idea that maybe Crowley needed to have some supernatural cyanide at his disposal in order to feel safer and that he should have that option. Based on the holy water story, Crowley, then, would be the first person to think that Aziraphale needed a suicide pill as an option if he found himself in trouble he couldn't get out of.

In 2.06, Crowley knows how likely it is that Aziraphale could be harmed by the angels and/or sent to Hell-- which is the domain of Crowley's assailant, who is literally Satan, and who hates both of them for, among other things, turning Adam against him. Crowley knows Aziraphale is a good person who wants to believe the best is possible but he also knows how unlikely it is that this is going to go well for Aziraphale. Crowley can't stand the thought of Aziraphale suffering so he gives him a way out as an act of love because Crowley would sooner lose Aziraphale for eternity than see him suffer.

When it becomes clear that Aziraphale is going with "The Metatron" and Crowley is out of ways to convince him not to, he sees Aziraphale look away and start to cry. Crowley goes back and kisses him as a last resort but Aziraphale is initially resistant-- not because this is their first kiss and not even just because they're upset (though that's part of it) but because to kiss Crowley then would be to let him in... (after all of those symbolic doors and "let me in"s happening in the story)... when Aziraphale making the mistake of trying to shut him out.

Aziraphale eventually, though, can't help but let Crowley in a little...

...because, ya know, it's Crowley...

...and, when he does, he opens up a little, and Crowley slips a suicide pill into Aziraphale's mouth.

It's also definitely worth noting that one of the reasons-- the primary reason, even-- why Crowley kisses Aziraphale is because he needs a cover to both make and give the fireball to Aziraphale without being noticed-- and to do so in such a way that Aziraphale would be assured of the ability to have it on his person when he got to Heaven-- even if he lost his clothes in the process, as like what happened to Gabriel when he was cast out. It has to go in Aziraphale's mouth for easy consumption for it to work and kissing him is the only way to do that. What's really worth noting, though?

Crowley's plan hinged on Aziraphale eventually giving in and kissing him back. He couldn't tongue the fireball into Aziraphale's mouth without Aziraphale parting his lips and Crowley knew he would... because he always does. Not that they're regularly trying to kiss while being super miserable lol but mah point is that Crowley knows that Aziraphale can't ever not kiss him. That's not indicative of this being a first kiss-- that's indicative of the complete opposite of that.

Anyway...

Aziraphale knows what Crowley can make and what it is that he just gave him and that's why this is his reaction after the kiss:

The devastation isn't over the kiss itself. It's because Aziraphale trusts Crowley's interpretations of things more than his own sometimes and, by secretly slipping Aziraphale a suicide capsule out of fear and love and delivered in a kiss, it really hits home for Aziraphale that Crowley thinks they are now in a situation where there probably isn't going to be another way out. It's not because it's a first kiss-- it's because it's likely a last one-- and things are so dire that it came with supernatural cyanide.

It's the realization that Crowley really thinks Aziraphale has been fooled and Aziraphale can't bear it because he knows, deep down, that Crowley is probably right and he's embarrassed. 'Pride goeth before a fall' and all that... Aziraphale is lovely-- an absolute poppet-- but he's imperfect, just like us all. One of his worst traits is that he doubles down when he's been embarrassed as a way of trying to save face and retain pride. It's maybe his worse flaw and it gets very dangerous for him here. Crowley is no stranger to trying to stop situations where it could happen, like this paralleling time in 1941:

Some other reasons why it's a fireball suicide pill before we get to what then happened in the elevator...

There's the fact that the show had a scene set in S2 in The Dirty Donkey-- where the elevator is. (As the start of the scene, Crowley & Aziraphale even walk through the door where the elevator will materialize at the end of S2.) Part of their conversation is very possibly Crowley recounting their first kiss-- at minimum, it's about kissing-- and then Aziraphale makes it also about balls, combining the two to, among other things, foreshadow The Final 15:

The wordplay here is already threefold in this scene off of Crowley's joke that follows Aziraphale remembering Jane Austen's balls: balls (testicles), the phrase that x person "has balls" (is badass), and balls (of the cotillion/dancing variety). This continues into the meeting that Aziraphale hosts-- the disaster of a ball that goes straight into the end game of the season. Here's Aziraphale making yet another ball-related wordplay joke-- this one, during The Meeting Ball:

"We're having a ball" as in they're literally having a ball-- a party-- but also the idiom "we're having a ball" meaning "we're having a great time." We are now up to four different meanings of the word 'ball' in S2, stretched across different scenes, emphasizing the importance of it. One of the missing ones still needed here to complete this idea is a literal ball-- and the ball bearing would not only meet this idea but would then make all of the ball-related wordplay have had the purpose of building towards it. We think it's building towards The Meeting Ball-- and it is-- but all of it, including The Meeting Ball, would actually then be building towards the hellfire ball, which is the actual ending of S2.

Then, there's what this all has to do with the eccles cakes...

Yes, eccles cakes lol... Eccles cakes, as a lot of us already know, are popularly referred to as "fly cakes", off of how the currents sometimes look in them, but the significant thing here is that, despite their name, eccles cakes are not actually cakes at all-- they are really pies.

Ball bearings are also used in Good Omens' favorite metaphor of food to weigh down dough when baking pie crust. Pie weights and ball bearings are basically the same things, just put to different use. It means you literally cannot make eccles cakes from scratch without a jar of pie weights... which are just, structurally, the same thing as ball bearings... and Crowley can make them. You also make pie dough by first rolling it into a ball.

Which is likely why this hilarious moment exists:

Please hold The Cake-Pies of Symbolism, my pie (and Pi)-loving dear...

Crowley's face at having to stand there holding some little pies 😂...

The eccles cakes-that-are-really-pies go along with this theory as well because look how the show presented the forthcoming apocalypse to us back in 2.01:

The horse is Crowley, the rider is Aziraphale, and they're headed for Armageddon-like mental health disaster-- all ushered in by the four eccles cakes, representing Gabriel, Beez, Nina (who suggested & gave them the eccles cakes) and Maggie.

Presumably, The Lords of the Flies are the two eccles cakes that are already canoodling on the back of the plate while Maggie and Nina are the two in the foreground who are aligned but not yet together. Crowley's S2 plot is largely working at the behest of these wonderfully rebellious pies. He looks after Gabriel, finds out what happened to him and connects it all to Beez... and this is after he spent the season on his vavoomy Operation Lovebirds to get Maggie and Nina together. He's responsible for the pie crust-- the containers of the eccles cakes-- in a show obsessed with containers. Crowley is, symbolically, a jar of pie weights in being form by way of his actions-- which is suggestive of the fact that he can probably physically make them. (There's also: "Just a few million years to bake," which Crowley said of his stars-- which he made-- in the opening scene of the season.)

"Nina, what do you sell that calms people down?"

Calm is from the Greek kauma, which means the heat of the day. Heat, as in slang for a weapon. Heat, as in hellfire. Heat, as in what's needed to bake. Heat, as in passion. Heat, as in "bringing the heat." The heat of the day-- the sunny daylight of The Final 15. Eccles cakes-- really: pies-- calm people down... they bring them heat, in every possible way, and it sets them on a path down-- to Hell.

Then, there's Agnes Nutter...

When The Witchfinder Army came to kill Agnes, she hid gunpowder (a weapon) and roofing nails (the construction-related metal that enabled it) in her dress. Agnes blew up-- she became a literal. fireball. Crowley wasn't necessarily suggesting that Aziraphale turn himself into an Agnes-like bomb in Heaven when he gave him the capsule but he was giving him a weapon involving fire with which he could kill himself if he had no other way out.

Then, there's the theme of suicide in examples from earlier in the season:

Crowley saving Elspeth (on the night Crowley was dragged to Hell)... The bit when Aziraphale then calls Crowley from Edinburgh in the present and tells him that he's read that Dalrymple left in disgrace and killed himself... "The Bananafish" being a short story about trauma by J.D. Salinger which ends with a traumatized man suddenly killing himself... Crowley setting Gabriel up to jump from the window and then stopping him from doing it...

There's also the fact that the end of S1 was Heaven and Hell forcing Crowley and Aziraphale into forms of suicide (getting into hellfire/holy water) and the "Aziraphale" in the Heaven part of it was Crowley spitting hellfire-- at Gabriel, no less, whose story is what jumpstarts S2.

Then, there's that the song that is The Clue to everything in S2 is "Everyday", the significance of which is that it's a foundational song of American rock 'n roll. Rock 'n roll is a blend of musical styles that actually wouldn't exist without first the big band/swing that Aziraphale loves that came before it-- symbolizing how Crowley & Aziraphale paved the way for Gabriel & Beez. There's another song, though, that, like "Everyday", is from the pivotal rock year of 1957 that is equally influential and is enormously Good Omens-y, in the sense that it cleverly uses wordplay to the effect of barely disguising sexual euphemisms and often through amusingly church-y language:

You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain/Too much love drives a man insane/You broke my will/But what a thrill...

Goodness gracious... great balls of fire...

[Also: less part of the theory and more just a possible nod but... "The Metatron" brought Aziraphale a coffee, there's a threat of non-existence, and Aziraphale might have gotten a 'kiss of death' from a being who is, essentially, a cherry pie lol... so, those of you who know that other greatest television show to ever television show might see a bit of a nod to Twin Peaks in here as well.]

Speaking of kisses of death... the film that popularized the word "vavoom"-- and which GO S2 is homaging all over the place-- is called 'Kiss Me Deadly.'..

So, after the kiss, Aziraphale gets the capsule and keeps it tucked into his mouth and he's gone too far with the conversation and doesn't want to admit that maybe he's wrong and Crowley is right. Crowley goes out, "The Metatron" comes back in, and Aziraphale keeps looking at Crowley staying by the car out the window and he's a bit more nervous now ("what about, um, my bookshop?"). Even if he still wants to be right, he's beginning to doubt even more that he is.

He almost tells "The Metatron" to go. He almost goes to Crowley. We see him start to say that he thinks he made a mistake but he doesn't go through with it. He's too embarrassed. Fraulein Maria can't face The Captain and is trying to run back to The Abbey over here.

Aziraphale goes out with "The Metatron" and the significant moment is this revelation: "We call it 'The Second Coming'."

This is the moment that Aziraphale realizes for sure that he's been tricked and there is no Supreme Archangel job for him. The Metatron doesn't want to change Heaven or save anybody-- he wants to destroy the world, same as he always has-- and there's no way that he'd ever trust Aziraphale to carry that out when Aziraphale is who stopped the first round. Heaven will never admit they did wrong by Crowley-- to do so would be to collapse the system because then every demon would want to appeal their own status and demand justice and the Heaven/Hell regime would fall, in the sense that their little supernatural empire would crumble. The Metatron would never allow that and Aziraphale realizes in this moment for sure that he has been played for a sucker.

It's still possible that, at this moment, Aziraphale might still believe that this being who has tempted him with the possibility of the justice he wants for Crowley more than Crowley actually wants for himself-- and with false reassurances that he and Crowley could be together forever-- actually is The Metatron. Or, Aziraphale might be starting to get the sense of what's actually happening but, either way, he now knows that he's been fooled. He knows now that while he and Crowley both got some things wrong (suggesting they run off and proposing suddenly were not great moves on Crowley's part)... about this bit anyway? About being in danger if he believes the being who came to the door? Crowley was right.

So, Aziraphale has a choice: does he go to Crowley or does he get in the elevator, knowing now that to do so is to go to a form of death?

He can't face Crowley. He knows Crowley would forgive him and just wants him to be safe but, in the moment, Aziraphale is too ashamed and too embarrassed to admit that he was fooled and to deal with how awfully he just behaved. He's also exhausted from being hounded by the weight of his halo and Heaven for thousands of years. Negative thought cycles in overdrive-- he's never truly believed that he deserves Crowley and he has convinced himself that maybe Crowley might be better off without him. Maybe they just don't get a happy ending and maybe Aziraphale is so tired and can't run and hide anymore and just wants it to end.

Imagine spending thousands of years in service of an organization that also doubles as family and who abused you and abandoned you and who now wants to kill you... and you so hoped that change was possible that you clung to the idea beyond a point of reason-- to the point of hurting the one you love, with whom you have the only real love you've ever known. And you know he'd forgive you in a heartbeat because he loves you and he just wants you to be safe but you can't face him because you can't yet face yourself... that's Aziraphale deciding between Crowley and the elevator.

Aziraphale can barely glance over at Crowley and when, he does, it's also The Bentley he's looking at because he's telling the car to play Crowley their song. Crowley said "no nightingales" but Aziraphale says, in response: "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square." His last moment on Earth and he uses it to basically leave a suicide note for Crowley that says nothing but I'm sorry. I love you.

Their song plays when Crowley starts the engine of The Bentley, which calls back to the first time they met in the Before the Beginning scene that began the season and showed how they started the engine of the universe together.

Aziraphale might be trying to warn Crowley about Armageddon by sending an "engine trouble"-type of message or he might be calling back to when they first met or, as I suspect, he might be doing both but the show, at least, is referencing Before the Beginning here with this, whether or not Aziraphale intentionally is.

So, Aziraphale? He makes his choice. He gets into the elevator...

...and he swallows the fireball. Which we can see him do here:

Or, as this was foreshadowed in S1 by the being whose own fall and subsequent arrival at the bookshop door set all the events in this season into motion:

(The eerieness of the fake grin on Gabriel after seeing how it foreshadows S2 ending with Aziraphale's mad grin...)

Because, when all is said and done, this poor bastard really would have a death-by-swallowing-something story over here, wouldn't he? Can they just hurry up and destroy the Heaven/Hell system so Aziraphale can have food and sex in peace already, please? 😄

Aziraphale knew he'd been played and he didn't want to go through whatever came next. He didn't want to reach the top floor of Heaven because he knows that only forms of death await him there. They'll take his memories. They'll cast him to Hell. Being a demon is no picnic and Aziraphale has seen that in being with Crowley for so long. Satan is not exactly the biggest fan of Aziraphale and Aziraphale, better than most, knows what Satan is capable of. He doesn't want any part of that. He ingested a suicide pill to avoid being captured by the enemy.

Crowley gave him the pill because angels are not immune to hellfire. That's what made it a suicide capsule, right? It was supposed to kill him within seconds. It was supposed to be quick and relatively painless-- a way to escape the horrors that might await him. Even when Aziraphale is at his worst-- as Aziraphale was in their last scene in bookshop-- he is still a pure-of-heart, lovely being to Crowley because Crowley loves Aziraphale as he is-- imperfect. Just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing. It never occurred to Crowley that the capsule might fail. Why? Because Aziraphale is, always and forever, his angel.

Both Crowley and Aziraphale thought the fireball should have protected Aziraphale from pain and suffering by killing him almost instantly once he ingested it.

By that measure, Aziraphale should have burst into flames in the elevator, seconds after he swallowed the pill just after stepping inside.

But he did not.

We watch as the seconds start to tick by... and we see the realization play out on Aziraphale's face as each second that passes is another one where he's still here...

...the look gets more and more unhinged as the elevator keeps climbing until we get the slightly mad dark grin as the last shot of him before a fade to a deathly black... with Aziraphale having spent the final splitscreen since he got into the elevator on the other side of Crowley, symbolizing what's happened.

In the elevator scene, we are watching the dawning realization play out on Aziraphale's face as the fireball doesn't work and there's only one reason why it wouldn't-- because he's no longer an angel.

Aziraphale has been sauntering vaguely downward for the season and maybe for awhile before then. He's been letting the darkness in, more and more, throughout all of S2. We have been watching his fall happen. The 'falling from a great height into a pit of boiling sulphur' part of falling? Ceremonial. An aftermath of sorts-- an additional punishment. It awaits Aziraphale when he gets off the elevator in Heaven but it's something we likely don't really need to see and never have seen in the show yet because that's not actually the main point of a fall. By the time you're literally falling from a great height, you've actually already fallen.

Aziraphale's determined-- but also just really half-mad-- final grim smile in the elevator over his understanding of what's happened is both the pain of thousands of years of religious trauma and abuse-related misery and a bit of completely unhinged I'm gonna burn this place to the fucking ground fury.

Aziraphale swallowing the capsule also parallels Gabriel having to "consume" The Fly to open it. The Fly went through Gabriel's eye and allowed him to "see"-- it give him realization and understanding by returning his memories to him. For Aziraphale, he swallows the fireball and it also gives him a kind of sight-- realization and understanding of what's happened and what's to come... all of this also in the moments before his memories (and, so, his sense of self/his life) will likely be taken from him.

(For a time-- he'll be fine eventually. *mantras* South Downs Cottage, South Downs Cottage...)

"And from his mouth go burning lamps and sparks of fire leap out." The Job quote on the matchbox. The matchbox contained the fly-- it's the equivalent to the ball bearing containing hellfire. Works now on several different levels but one of them then is: And from his mouth (Crowley's mouth/the kiss/the fireball/Aziraphale swallowing the fireball)...

...go burning lamps (the light that goes out in the bookshop when Aziraphale is in the elevator)...

...and sparks of fire leap out. Several meanings:

Literal sparks-- in that Aziraphale can now spit hellfire, like how Crowley did in his body in Heaven in S1.

Sparks of fire leaping out, in the sense that Aziraphale has made the leap-- he is a demon now.

Lastly, though... sparks of fire leap out... as in, Hell (and Heaven) hath no fury like this very, very, very pissed off Angel of the Eastern Gate whose whole thing is freeing those imprisoned by corrupt systems...

Visually paralleling the elevator with a grey wall behind him and light/darkness alternately striping Aziraphale is the 'Aziraphale and God' scene in 1.03, setting up its sister elevator scene in 2.06, where Aziraphale realizes that he has been tempted by Satan and has fallen. (Ironically, a realization about having fallen that happens while going Up in an elevator.)

God: "Aziraphale. (dryly) Angel of the Eastern Gate. Where is the flaming sword I gave you, Aziraphale?"

Aziraphale, unintentionally foreshadowing the fuck out of the plot:

"...must have put it down here somewhere."

Yeah. 😉 Give 'em hell, Aziraphale.

Bonuses:

The awning of a new age/Dawning of a New Age joke. An understanding/a daybreak that begins a new era...

"Oh, listen, I think it's about to happen-- the 'awning' of a new age." Yes, indeed, Crowley. A dawning of a new age was imminent...

...and, finally, if you substitute 'Aziraphale' for his parallel of 'Job' in these sentences, Bildaddy summarized the season endgame quite nicely in 2.02:

#ineffable husbands #good omens #good omens meta #crowley #aziraphale #good omens 2 #good omens theory #aziracrow #good omens speculation #good omens clues #good omens analysis #good omens parallels #long post but worth it #tw suicide #tw depression

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clovestreet · 2 years ago

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let me- ethan landry

an: i am absolutely FERAL for this man atm...😨i just had to write something abt him..

summary: you have been super stressed about exams lately and ethan knows the best way to make you feel better. (also this is DEFINITELY more soft ethan??) but i like that.. lol

warnings⚠ SMUT (16+), oral (f receiving), strong language

Hell on earth was organic chemistry.

Your absolute fucktard of a professor had scheduled your exam on the same day as two of your other exams. This man had it out for you.

You massaged your temple as you drummed your pencil on your notes. Your brain wasn't functioning anymore. You had been sitting at this godforsaken desk for three hours now. You needed a break.

You forced yourself out of your chair and faceplanted on your bed next to your boyfriend in defeat. You sighed into the mattress and tried to gather your thoughts.

"Something bothering you baby?" your boyfriend laughed as he rubbed small circles into your back, clearly amused by your frustration with trying to memorize aromatic compounds.

"I can't do this anymore E, "I'm actually so exhausted."

"I wish someone would just kill the stupid bastard." you groaned into your palms.

Ethan gulped and immediately froze in his movements and you weren't sure why. But then he was comforting you again like nothing had happened.

"I'm sorry baby. If it makes you feel better, I just failed my last exam."

You laughed as he pulled you closer, the grasp of his arms melting away your stress.

"Honestly, I don't know if anything could make me feel better at this point.”

“Unless you can teach me the structure of carboxylic acid." you said with your hands on his chest staring into his dark eyes.

His chest shook with laughter and it was music to your ears. Ethan was so comforting and even being in his arms took you to a place far away from your worries.

"Definitely can't do that, but I think I can take your mind off it for a little while." he murmured into your lips.

"Oh yeah? How's that?"

"Well it usually starts with my head between your legs” he says in a low whisper.

You immediately feel your cheeks flush with warmth and squeeze your legs together.

You completely froze and waited for him to finish his sentence.

“ ..And ends with you screaming my name or something like that." he says with a devilish smirk.

He grins like a lovesick bastard at your embarrassment and tilts his head down to connect his lips to yours. He smiles into the kiss and you can feel your pulse weakening at the way his tongue explores your mouth.

His lips travel down your neck and you know exactly where he's going. You pull him off of you and look him in straight in his hazy brown eyes.

You and Ethan had been together for a little over a year now and you had been intimate more times than you could even begin to remember. You still got nervous before he went down on you and you just couldn't help but feel insecure sometimes, but Ethan always made you forget about all of it when he touched you.

"E, are you sure? You really don’t have to, I-”

He immediately stops you with a confused expression on his face.

“Baby are you kidding? I live for this shit.”

“I should probably get back to studying E, I just-"

He cut you off again, this time taking your head into his hand and made sure you met his gaze.

"Fuck studying. Let me make you feel good babe."

His thumb gently brushed over your cheek as he searched your eyes for an answer.

"Ok, fine." you said softly with a shy smile on your face.

"That's my girl." he said with a grin spreading over his face as he placed the softest kiss on your lips.

His fingers danced their way over your ribs under your shirt and his lips were placing gentle kisses on your hipbones. His fingers made their way down to the waistband of your shorts and his eyes quickly glanced up to yours asking for consent. You quickly nodded your head, becoming more and more eager for him to touch you by the second.

He pulled down your shorts gently and tossed them behind him. He hooked his fingers under your lace panties and pulled them down painfully slow. Once they were off, he grabbed both of your legs and put them over his shoulders. He wrapped his arms around your legs and pulled them open.

He looked up at you through lustful eyes while licking his lips.

"I got you. Always." he said in a low whisper placing a kiss on your inner thigh.

You brushed a gentle hand over his curls and offered a weak smile to him. You could feel your anticipation for his touch becoming stronger and your legs were shaking before he even touched you.

You could feel his breath on you and you couldn't take it anymore. You wrapped your fingers in his curls and guided him onto you.

He licked up your slit as you sucked in a shaky breath. Your thighs immediately clenched around him, but his strong hands pulled your legs right back open. His tongue started to circle around your clit and your fingers were already tugging on his curls. He groaned into you and the vibration had you letting out a choked moan.

"Right there E." you gasped.

He looked up at your face contorted in pleasure and started to grind his hips onto to the bed. Ethan was the kind of boyfriend who genuinely could get off from pleasuring you and have absolutely no shame about it.

He was lost in the taste of you and you were lost in his touch. You couldn't even remember what you were stressed about in the first place. Your mind was consumed by the feeling of his tongue sloppily tasting you and swirling around your clit, the tight grip of his fingers prying open your thighs, his dark eyes peering up at you through hooded lids occasionally rolling back into his head every time you moaned his name.

His hand slid carefully down your thigh as he slipped his middle finger into you, pumping in and out at a deliciously slow pace.

Your fingers tugged harder on his curls and he practically moaned into you.

"F-feels so good E, you're so good" you whined.

"I know baby I know, I'm gonna get you there I promise." he murmured into you, pressing wet kisses on your clit.

His words made you toss your head back and your back arch off the bed.

He slipped another finger into you, pumping a little faster this time.

Your fingers loosened from Ethan's hair and slid down his bare shoulders. His fingers started to curl inside you, purposefully hitting the spot he knew would send you over the edge. You moaned loudly and your nails dug into his back.

He groaned into you so loudly it almost caught you off guard. If you hadn't known better, you would have thought you hurt him. But you knew better by now. His sounds sent you even closer to the edge.

"Come on babe, let go for me." he breathed into you.

You could feel yourself impossibly close to your high with Ethan's gaze trained on your face. The second Ethan's nose rubbed your clit you were done for.

All you could do was moan his name over and over again, your nails digging into his back sure to leave marks. He fucked you all the way through your high until you were practically dragging him off of you.

You put your hand on the back of his neck and guided him toward your lips. God, he was so beautiful, even with the taste of you glimmering all over his features. You pulled him down into a breathless kiss and brought him closer by draping your leg over his waist.

He drew back and cupped your jaw looking down at you.

"I really hope you're not thinking about studying anymore tonight, because all I want to do-"

"Shut up and kiss me Landry."

#ethan landry #ethan landry smut #ethan landry x reader #ethan landry imagine #scream 6 smut

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loopyren · 1 year ago

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inukag's conversation in ch 176... yea that one

This scene at the well in Ch 176, when Kagome asks to stay by Inuyasha, meant a lot to me… so I decided to do a whole ass formal translation for myself (which you can read at the way bottom, but it's probably not too different from what's already out there.)

While translating, I came across 3 details from the original text that I felt were super important 🤧

①　Everyone knows Inuyasha said that he must "give Kikyo his life" in the official Viz translation. Yes, in the original text, Inuyasha says:

命懸けで応えなくちゃならねえ。 In return, I must stake my life for Kikyo.

But that bolded part implies that staking his life for Kikyo is not something he necessarily wants to do out of his own free will, but something that he must do beyond his own will, if that makes sense. Right here, Inuyasha conveys clearly how he feels about the matter.

If he meant to say that he chose this out of his own volition, he would've said something like "...なくちゃいけない" which implies a will out of choice... But no, he said ならない, which implies it's "out of his control", so that gives clear insight to his feelings. He's not doing this because he wants to. He wants to stay with Kagome if he could, but he thinks his duty binds his fate to Kikyo, so therefore, this must be so.

②　Usually, Kagome is translated saying (to Inuyasha) "I want you to live." But I noticed something. She says:

"生きててほしい" ....not just "生きてほしい".

You might think, "Wha? That extra little word changes things?" HAHA well, if you care to know why... yes... bc she's using the present progressive form of that verb. So, I feel there's something missing in that translation.

Kagome doesn't just want Inuyasha to live (as in "be alive"), she wants him to keep on living. She wants to see him live past his trauma, to not give up his life. So, this is a bit of an interpretation, but I personally would translate what she's saying as "I want you to live on." Like when we wish for a friend going through hard times to not succumb to darkness :(

③　Finally, Sunrise had Kagome say something different in her final monologue (wow, what a surprise). (Note, Viz actually did translate this appropriately in the manga.)

In the anime, she just says...

楽しんでほしい。 I want you to be happy.

It's cute, but in the manga, she says...

楽しいことがあってもいい。 -> literally: It's okay to have happiness. -> It's okay (for you) to feel happy.

She's reassuring Inuyasha that it's alright to feel happiness, presumably despite his survivor's guilt. He told her at the start of their conversation, "But… to feel happy, to laugh, I shouldn't be doing these things." This is a response to that. It's so sweet.

+++

THAT'S IT!! There was A LOT of weight to this scene. It made me ugly cry until my eyes got swollen lol...

(if you'd like to read my full translation of their conversation, it is right here below~)

Note: I tried to translate as close to the original nuance of the Japanese text, so the sentence structure may sound unnatural at times.

(SFX: refreshing breeze)

Inuyasha: Kagome...

(Kagome sees him and begins to speak.)

Kagome: I thought about this the whole time I was back home. About you, Kikyo, and me…

Inuyasha: Kagome… I…

Kagome: I know. I know what your feelings are; that's why… I thought I can't be here anymore.

Inuyasha: Kagome… until I met you, I couldn't trust anyone. But you cried for my sake, you were always by my side. When I'm with you, Kagome, I feel happy. My heart is at ease. But… to feel happy, to laugh, I shouldn't be doing these things.

Inuyasha: Kikyo… she followed after me in death. In return, I must stake my life for Kikyo.

Kagome: I understand. I can't compete against her... because I still live.

Kagome: I thought about her a whole lot too. Kikyo and I, we're so completely different. Even with all this stuff about how I'm her reincarnation… well, anyway, I'm not Kikyo. My heart is my own.

Kagome: But you see, there is one thing. How Kikyo is feeling... I get it. I feel the same. We both want to see you, Inuyasha, one more time.

Kagome: You know, somehow, when I thought, "Don't Kikyo and I share the same feelings?", I became a little more at ease. Like, our feelings of wanting to see you are the same, aren't they... So, I gathered up the courage, and came to see you.

Inuyasha: Kagome… As for me, I wanted to see you too. But…

Kagome: I want to be with you*, Inuyasha. To forget about you, I can't do it.

(*T/N: She does not mean "be with you" in a romantic sense. She means to literally be near him, to exist by him, etc.)

Inuyasha: Kagome… what's the best way for me to respond to you?

Kagome: Inuyasha, let me ask you just one thing?

Inuyasha: Yeah…

Kagome: Is it okay if I stay with you?

(SFX: surprise...)

Inuyasha: You'll… stay for me?

Kagome: Yeah… (she smiles.)

Inuyasha and Kikyo's bond absolutely cannot be severed. That... I understand. But you know, Inuyasha? I thought about it… Our meeting was not just a coincidence either.

I want you to live on, Inuyasha.

Kagome: Let's go, Inuyasha.

Inuyasha: O-Oh, yeah, okay...

It's okay to feel happiness. I want you to laugh a lot. I don't know what I can do for you, but…

I will always be by your side.

#paying homage to the scene that rewrote my brain chemistry #my:translations #inuyasha #kagome #kagome higurashi #inukag #inuyasha x kagome #kagome x inuyasha #inuyasha anime #inuyasha manga #inuyasha translations #inuyasha ch 176 #inuyasha e48 #犬夜叉 #かごめ #犬かご #my:posts #my:inumeta

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differenteagletragedy · 1 year ago

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Our Life headcannons

-- Cove has at least one child who is autistic and nonverbal. He becomes a master at communicating with this baby, and whenever they are able to use their words he absolutely loses his mind. The first time he hears an "I love you"? Crying, screaming, flat on the ground, bawling his eyes out. Let someone in public try to make any kind of remark if the kid has a meltdown. They will not survive.

-- Derek asked you to prom "as friends." He asked you what you were wearing so his tux could match you, and he got you a corsage too, "as friends." Did it seem kind of like a date? Of course it did, he'd had a crush on you for years. But he was very insistent on the "as friends" part and even if you had a crush on him too, it kind of made you think he couldn't ever see you that way at all.

-- Going to watch a movie with Baxter? Lol, no you're not. Boy runs his mouth trying to be cute and you can never follow the plot because he's sitting beside you with that little smirk, trying to make you laugh and look all adorable. If you really want to see something, leave him home or at least learn how to tune him out -- even if you do he'll keep going.

-- Cove doesn't like to drink but when he does he will not. Shut. Up. He's not like Movie Baxter, he just keeps saying whatever comes to mind, no filter. No real memory on how to properly structure sentences either. He just really needs you to know literally every single thought that pops into his head so please just listen to him, hey, are you listening?

-- Do you want a dog? You better if you end up with Derek, because y'all are getting a dog. It doesn't matter what kind it is, he'll be taking that dog on runs with him, he'll be doing research to get it the best kind of food and to figure out what kind of environment it thrives in. Did he just get another subscription box for the dog even though he already gets one? Yup. That's his dog.

-- Do you like makeup? Cool, Baxter likes you to put makeup on him too, thanks. Not to go out, that's not really his thing, but it's a nice relaxing activity to do at home. He gets you all close to him (once you get back together he's not gonna let you go lol), and he gets to feel pretty. Don't skimp on the mascara, he likes his lashes, and be sure to play up his best features. Maybe try a dark lipstick this time, he'd like to see how that looks. And when you're done having fun, you better get to thoroughly removing everything and then following up with his skincare routine.

-- Sorry, let's double up on Baxter while we're here -- do you have a skin routine too? Because that's a shared interest and he's gonna want to talk about it. What's your favorite cleanser? Do you want to do face masks together? There's this new moisturizer he's interested in that's stupid expensive but he still wants to try it, want to split it? You share a Sephora rewards account so you can get more points. Oops, you accidentally put on too much of your lip mask and your lips are all goofy -- just give him a kiss, he hasn't put his on yet. It's weird how much I could go on about this.

-- You can also put makeup on Cove, but maybe stick to powders so he can rinse it all off easy after. And you can do whatever to Derek, he doesn't care, he's just happy to be there.

-- Everybody makes a big deal about Baxter's dancing, but this is actually another case of Derek Erasure, because he can do stuff too. His dad taught him and his brothers how to properly dance with a partner, and he was too shy to do it if you took him to the Summer Soiree, but if you end up with him? He can hold his own for sure.

-- If Cove doesn't end up with you, he ends up with Xavier. That's it. That's how it goes.

-- Not one of the main boys, but if you and Cove have babies then Cliff absolutely thrives on his GILF status. He tells everyone that he's a grandfather, literally every single person, and he's def proud of Cove and loves his grandbaby to bits, but also, like, look at him. Crazy hot grandpa, right?

#cove holden #derek suarez #baxter ward #our life beginnings and always #our life #olba #olba cove #olba derek #olba baxter #our life headcannons #olba mc #cove holden x mc #derek suarez x mc #baxter ward x mc #grandpa cliff

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interstellarsystem · 8 months ago

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Little Plural Things

Systems can present in a lot of different ways. Sometimes, being a system can be loud and obvious if you're naturally more overt and/or out about yourselves as plural. Sometimes, it can be quiet and barely noticeable, but still there--just harder to see. Our system is fairly obvious if we're unmasked, but there are still things that escape even our own knowledge when we're masking as hard as we can. Little things that to us, remind us that our system is undeniably real. This is a post about those experiences we've had with barely-noticeable signs of a system.

Not every system will relate to these experiences, some might feel similarly about a few points, some may have others of their own entirely, some might not know or not have anything like the experiences we mention, and that's all part of being plural. No two systems are mirror images of each other. This is a post about our experiences.

1. Handwriting

Recently, we've had it brought to our attention that we have different handwriting. We don't write with a pen/pencil often, but we were asked to fill out a worksheet for our psychologist recently. She told us that whoever in our system wants to contribute to it can, and suggested that we signify who wrote what in some way--to which we chose different pencil colours for different headmates. We took the worksheet home and put things on it depending on who was in the front and if they wanted to.

It turned out, that some of our writing widely differs from each other. Out of the 6 people who wrote on the sheet, most of them were wildly different. Rift and Martin wrote the most tidily, with Rift's writing looking more "proper" and "adult". I (Vince) apparently am not the best at neat writing but I managed to be better than what our "normal" writing is like from what we remember. Merlin wrote messily like he was writing very fast. Mystery wrote with very large letters with sharp angles that overall made it look like it was written by a child new to writing. Which makes absolute sense. It's not a child, but its hands in-headspace are bigger than ours and that was the actual first time it had written anything on paper since it got here.

Somehow, it took until our psychologist pointed it out for us to notice how different it was.

2. Vocabulary Choices

Something we are able to notice sometimes is how our vocabulary and sometimes sentence structure changes based on who is speaking. Some obvious examples are our British headmates substituting "bloody" for other words as an exclamation and the difference between what some of our headmates would call a "chip" or a "fry".

Other times though, it's more subtle. Sometimes there's certain phrases that will just have a word or two swapped out and it does tend to point toward who is fronting even if people do use multiple of these. Some examples are:

"I suppose" vs "I think" vs "I believe"

"Kinda" vs "Kind of" vs "Sort of" vs "Sorta"

"Recently" vs "A bit ago"

"Sleepy" vs "Tired"

"Lol" vs "Haha" vs "Lmao" vs a keysmash (Even though these are text-based they are quite telling.)

"Quite" vs "Very" (Speaking of the above.)

Getting more subtle with them, some other examples are:

"You know" vs "Y'know"

"Uh" vs "Um"

"Uh-Huh" vs "Mhm"

Sometimes typing is influenced too. The amount of em-dahses within the text, the consistency of proper punctuation, how mechanical the text feels, how many run-on sentences there are and even how much tends to be written in one message/post can all point toward different people being in control.

3. Accidental Accents and Inflections

While accents are usually very obvious, we're generally good at masking them. Generally.

Due to us living in Australia, our headmates with accents straight from London don't stick out too bad when they're struggling to mask, but they are still noticeable to those around us who know we're plural. Passerby on the street or people who don't see us often don't think much of it, but certain people we are close to know that a few people in our system find it harder to mask and can tell when they're fronting very easily because of it.

Even if we are masking our accents properly, some parts of the way we speak still come out. Some of us end sentences on a higher-pitch more often due to what our accent generally has us do and some end more on lower-pitch notes when speaking. Some of us put emphasis on certain syllables differently. There's lots of little things that go into language that make it hard to completely mask.

4. Food Choices

More of a noticeable one, but something we tend to brush off as "just a bad batch" when it happens. Some of us like and dislike different foods and drinks, some of us to an extreme degree.

Mystery hates the brand of juice we normally buy and thought that it might've just been past expiry (it was not) or just a bad batch of the juice, but they're consistently the only one who doesn't like it.

Rave likes spicy food much more than the rest of us because they have a harder time tasting it. I on the other hand can't handle spicy food at all and am worse with it than the others in my system.

Some of us favour different brands of food and some of us might like/dislike textures of food differently too.

5. Default Facial Expressions

Different resting facial expressions are something we hardly notice because we don't look in a mirror often due to dysphoria. What we do know though, is that some of us just rest our faces differently.

I look more stern and tired than others. I have a bit of an angrier resting expression.

Martin looks a little bit more anxious due to being an anxiety-holder, but he also looks softer and kinder.

Crowley also looks tired but has less of a stern look and more of an almost blank one.

6. Body Language

This is one we don't know too much about because we can only get knowledge on this from other people, but most of our headmates have a different "vibe" by the way they carry themselves.

I end up seeming to-the-point and business-like.

Martin reads as being very anxious even if he's not always.

Crowley reads as smug.

Mal reads as if he's planning something mischevious and silly.

We've been told that Filigree just reads as "gay".

We're not sure what actions make us seem this way, but some of us can be clocked by others around us as fronting without even talking first. I don't know how people do it, but it's something in our body language.

7. Clothing Choices

A few of us have different clothing choices--Crowley still wears sunglasses everywhere due to light sensitivity and wears dark colours, I prefer to wear button-up shirts as opposed to more casual things, Martin prefers hoodies that are lighter in colour and Merlin prefers to dress in pink and black and more fluffy textures.

We don't have too many clothes overall so to others it does just look like we're cycling through our wardrobe, and sometimes we are, but there's certain styles some of us tend to lean toward more than others.

---

Some of these might seem quite noticeable, and maybe they are if you know we're a system, but people change a lot so once again some of this is much more subtle than it sounds. People who don't know that you're a system hardly ever notice, and if they do they put it to "having an off day" and leave it at that.

We wanted to take some time to appreciate those little things we find it hard to notice, though. And maybe it'll end up helping some other system realise how unique they are as individuals and help fight off the imposter syndrome like these realisations did for us.

#alterhuman #system #didosdd #plural #actually did #actuallyplural #plural system #plurality #endo safe #pro endo #quoigenic #pluralgang #op #vince (he/they)#everything althu #althu experiences #everything plural #plural experiences

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