Loving The Hairdo Queen. Very Victorian-child Core

As much as I'm excited for a solo book on solangelo, I really wanted a book focusing on Piper and Jason after the war. I wanted to see them trying to find Leo, trying not to give up, the breaking point where Piper realized this entire relationship wasn't real, the break up, them still being friends and having to remind themselves that they were never dating, and it was all just a fever dream.

I wanted to see them going into that parking lot and being separated, that fear of losing another friend, I wanted to see Jason learning that one of them wasn't going to be around that long, his mindset, him deciding that he wouldn't let Piper die, them fighting outside, Piper knowing Jason was going to do something reckless, and them going their separate ways, because Piper can't bare another friend keeping a secret from her, because she still feels guilty over Leo, and inside she still feels as if the reason Leo didn't tell them the plan was because he didn't trust her, didn't trust them.

The story doesn't have a happy ending. Its a prequel, its everything that lead up to Jason's sacrifice. Piper and Jason were always a tragedy, and I feel like Rick could have expanded on that.

I wanna put all fanfic authors in one room and just shower them in flower petals and chocolates and a mandatory spa day.

I love you creative little people on the Internet, forehead kisses for you all, shoulder rubs and free hugs.

You're amazing, your work is amazing, your creativity is indescribable otherworldly, I am on my KNEES for you lot, may the gods bless you fellow fan boys, fangirls, and fan jarls for giving us our daily intake of our faves.

Wilbur made another Reddit post about Ghostbur. No exclamation point today

Hey guys! Got some good news!

Ghostbur isn’t dead. Ghostbur is suspended. He’s never had a ‘living’ body and never will but to say he is dead is a misrepresentation.

Ghostbur is as close to a torturous limbo as he can possibly get. He has been in the afterlife for almost 6000 days! (That’s 16 years) and it never seems to get easier.

Not only is he confined to a life of loneliness and silent darkness but every ache, every pain, every little sting he feels on his body never seems to subside. He hurt his fingers scratching a wall over a decade ago but they still feel raw as if it was yesterday.

But that’s not pertinent to his current situation. That’s the last injury Ghostbur was afflicted with. He has spent the past years sat, limply leaning against the damp wall. Even if he was to retain any injury he contracted it wouldn’t matter.

He hasn’t moved in years.

He hasn’t checked the dot matrix out of fear. The room lights up whenever it updates and Ghostbur scrunches his eyes up as tight as he can until the light fades a few hours later.

This also helps dam the tears from burning his cheeks as he himself is damned to this plane.

He has spent 5 months on the material plane. He has spent 16 years in limbo.

A new addition to Ghostbur’s horrific existence is the slow burning of his memory. As time elapses he seems to lose track of his good memories as well as the bad ones he forgot long ago. Only a few remain;

He remembers the smell of baked bread.

He remembers sparring with technoblade as a child.

He remembers the crowds and the loud cheers.

He remembers a guillotine.

He remembers a cold eternal icy wasteland.

He remembers Tommy’s kindness.

One thing remains true. Ghostbur is the remnant of a plighted man who was sentenced to death for his evil. Ghostbur’s situation is a result of that man’s return.

Ghostbur feels guilty. Ghostbur misses everyone.

Goodbye

this is robin’s girlfriend nancy and this is nancy’s boyfriend steve and this is steve’s boyfriend eddie and this is nancy’s other boyfriend jonathan this is jonathan’s boyfriend argyle and this is argyle’s girlfriend eden and this is eden’s sister suzie and this is suzie’s boyfriend dustin and this is dustin’s boyfriend lucas and this is lucas’s girlfriend max and this is max’s girlfriend el and this is el’s boyfriend mike and this is mike’s boyfriend will

something about phil’s tribute to techno being a silent minecraft build on his hardcore world. something about tommy’s tribute to techno being making people laugh. something about wilbur’s tribute to techno being storytelling. ya know

mangobaII corpsebur REAL

In the beginning of the smp, Tubbo was a lot like Aimsey, wasn't he?

He was hopeful and optimistic, and he was full of joy.

But Tubbo learned.

He learned that nothing he loves stays.

Lmanberg, Wilbur, Tommy, Ranboo,

none of them ever stayed.

And seeing Aimsey, someone just like Tubbo, so hopeful and naive,

It broke something in him.

Awhile ago @ouidamforeman made this post:

This shot through my brain like a chain of firecrackers, so, without derailing the original post, I have some THOUGHTS to add about why this concept is not only hilarious (because it is), but also...

It. It kind of fucks. Severely.

And in a delightfully Pratchett-y way, I'd dare to suggest.

I'll explain:

As inferred above, both Crowley AND Aziraphale have canonical Biblical counterparts. Not by name, no, but by function.

Crowley, of course, is the serpent of Eden.

(note on the serpent of Eden: In Genesis 3:1-15, at least, the serpent is not identified as anything other than a serpent, albeit one that can talk. Later, it will be variously interpreted as a traitorous agent of Hell, as a demon, as a guise of Satan himself, etc. In Good Omens --as a slinky ginger who walks funny)

Lesser known, at least so far as I can tell, is the flaming sword. It, too, appears in Genesis 3, in the very last line:

"So he drove out the man; and placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." --Genesis 3:24, KJV

Thanks to translation ambiguity, there is some debate concerning the nature of the flaming sword --is it a divine weapon given unto one of the Cherubim (if so, why only one)? Or is it an independent entity, which takes the form of a sword (as other angelic beings take the form of wheels and such)? For our purposes, I don't think the distinction matters. The guard at the gate of Eden, whether an angel wielding the sword or an angel who IS the sword, is Aziraphale.

(note on the flaming sword: in some traditions --Eastern Orthodox, for example-- it is held that upon Christ's death and resurrection, the flaming sword gave up it's post and vanished from Eden for good. By these sensibilities, the removal of the sword signifies the redemption and salvation of man.

...Put a pin in that. We're coming back to it.)

So, we have our pair. The Serpent and the Sword, introduced at the beginning and the end (ha) of the very same chapter of Genesis.

But here's the important bit, the bit that's not immediately obvious, the bit that nonetheless encapsulates one of the central themes, if not THE central theme, of Good Omens:

The Sword was never intended to guard Eden while Adam and Eve were still in it.

Do you understand?

The Sword's function was never to protect them. It doesn't even appear until after they've already fallen. No... it was to usher Adam and Eve from the garden, and then keep them out. It was a threat. It was a punishment.

The flaming sword was given to be used against them.

So. Again. We have our pair. The Serpent and the Sword: the inception and the consequence of original sin, personified. They are the one-two punch that launches mankind from paradise, after Hell lures it to destruction and Heaven condemns it for being destroyed. Which is to say that despite being, supposedly, hereditary enemies on two different sides of a celestial cold war, they are actually unified by one purpose, one pivotal role to play in the Divine Plan: completely fucking humanity over.

That's how it's supposed to go. It is written.

...But, in Good Omens, they're not just the Serpent and the Sword.

They're Crowley and Aziraphale.

(author begins to go insane from emotion under the cut)

In Good Omens, humanity is handed it's salvation (pin!) scarcely half an hour after losing it. Instead of looming over God's empty garden, the sword protects a very sad, very scared and very pregnant girl. And no, not because a blameless martyr suffered and died for the privilege, either.

It was just that she'd had such a bad day. And there were vicious animals out there. And Aziraphale worried she would be cold.

...I need to impress upon you how much this is NOT just a matter of being careless with company property. With this one act of kindness, Aziraphale is undermining the whole entire POINT of the expulsion from Eden. God Herself confronts him about it, and he lies. To God.

And the Serpent--

(Crowley, that is, who wonders what's so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil anyway; who thinks that maybe he did a GOOD thing when he tempted Eve with the apple; who objects that God is over-reacting to a first offense; who knows what it is to fall but not what it is to be comforted after the fact...)

--just goes ahead and falls in love with him about it.

As for Crowley --I barely need to explain him, right? People have been making the 'didn't the serpent actually do us a solid?' argument for centuries. But if I'm going to quote one of them, it may as well be the one Neil Gaiman wrote ficlet about:

"If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization." --Robert G. Ingersoll

The first to ask questions.

Even beyond flattering literary interpretation, we know that Crowley is, so often, discreetly running damage control on the machinations of Heaven and Hell. When he can get away with it. Occasionally, when he can't (1827).

And Aziraphale loves him for it, too. Loves him back.

And so this romance plays out over millennia, where they fall in love with each other but also the world, because of each other and because of the world. But it begins in Eden. Where, instead of acting as the first Earthly example of Divine/Diabolical collusion and callousness--

(other examples --the flood; the bet with Satan; the back channels; the exchange of Holy Water and Hellfire; and on and on...)

--they refuse. Without even necessarily knowing they're doing it, they just refuse. Refuse to trivialize human life, and refuse to hate each other.

To write a story about the Serpent and the Sword falling in love is to write a story about transgression.

Not just in the sense that they are a demon and an angel, and it's ~forbidden. That's part of it, yeah, but the greater part of it is that they are THIS demon and angel, in particular. From The Real Bible's Book of Genesis, in the chapter where man falls.

It's the sort of thing you write and laugh. And then you look at it. And you think. And then you frown, and you sit up a little straighter. And you think.

And then you keep writing.

And what emerges hits you like a goddamn truck.

(...A lot of Pratchett reads that way. I believe Gaiman when he says Pratchett would have been happy with the romance, by the way. I really really do).

It's a story about transgression, about love as transgression. They break the rules by loving each other, by loving creation, and by rejecting the hatred and hypocrisy that would have triangulated them as a unified blow against humanity, before humanity had even really got started. And yeah, hell, it's a queer romance too, just to really drive the point home (oh, that!!! THAT!!!)

...I could spend a long time wildly gesturing at this and never be satisfied. Instead of watching me do that (I'll spare you), please look at this gif:

I love this shot so much.

Look at Eve and Crowley moving, at the same time in the same direction, towards their respective wielders of the flaming sword. Adam reaches out and takes her hand; Aziraphale reaches out and covers him with a wing.

You know what a shot like that establishes? Likeness. Commonality. Kinship.

"Our side" was never just Crowley and Aziraphale. Crowley says as much at the end of season 1 ("--all of us against all of them."). From the beginning, "our side" was Crowley, Aziraphale, and every single human being. Lately that's around 8 billion, but once upon a time it was just two other people. Another couple. The primeval mother and father.

But Adam and Eve die, eventually. Humanity grows without them. It's Crowley and Aziraphale who remain, and who protect it. Who...oversee it's upbringing.

Godfathers. Sort of.

if you say that c!tommy doesn't care about c!wilbur or vice versa, you have fundamentally misunderstood their entire dynamic and relationship to each other

c!tommy makes snarky and rude comments to c!wilbur because he's just a teenager who doesn't know how to communicate all the hurt he feels. no matter what, he's still at c!wilbur's side. he doesn't know how to help him or how to fix everything, but he would never choose to leave him or give up on him.

c!wilbur doesn't apologize to c!tommy because he's terrified of c!tommy leaving him. he's the most important person to c!wilbur and the person whose opinion matters most, because if c!tommy leaves him, all of his fears of being the "villain," of being irredeemable become true. if he apologizes to c!tommy, that gives c!tommy the chance to not forgive him and leave him behind.

the whole reason they are so tragic is BECAUSE of how much they love each other, not because they are bad for each other

I wrote a poem about L’Manberg

You were built by friendships and kindness

Founded on an idea of safety (and destroyed by their blindness)

Thrice, the ground you stood on was broken

Twice, the people who made you were at fault for it

Your symphony is unfinished

Your legacy is incorrect

You were full of laughter, once

That’s what people forget; they only remember the pain that took place within you

And pretend it was your fault that it happened

Maybe you’d still be here

But the people who were loyal to you were kicked out

One died to kill his grief after he killed you

The other returned after being cast away, but was unable to save you

He is remained of you when his brother plays his guitar

He is reminded of you when he makes flower crowns with his friends

He is reminded of you when he sits on a bench

He is reminded of you when he sees redwood trees

When he hears laughter

When his best friend tells him a joke

Others are reminded of you when he smiles

But that’s been such a rare sight, since you’ve been gone

On the anniversary of your first victory he brings you flowers

On the anniversary of the worst day of his life, he visits that wretched room and asks what he could’ve done better to stop it from happening

On the anniversary of your final defeat he can’t get out of bed.

People still walk along whatever earth is left under you.

There is a bridge there now.

Plants grow from the obsidian that blocks out the sun

Life persists even on the tool that was used to kill you

The people who loved you remember you well

But your story hasn’t been told by them

It’s been told by the ones responsible for your downfall

And the ones who never held you close at all

History is told by the winner, not the one in the right

And your story is told by people who did not know you

And it is told wrong