#( dumb bastard has been wanting a long rain for a while and the desert is not kind enough to give him it yet. )

[septembriseur]

You guys know that I’m back to working on Transposition. But it is, frankly, a challenge, and I feel a lot of pressure to put something out there and prove that the story will be finished. So I’m posting what is essentially some AU tidbits, because it’s a draft of part of Chapter 52 that I threw out and totally reconceptualized. It is not particularly good, but here it is!

Telford trades the tel’tak to a junk dealer in the P3S-805 system and ends up in a ratty little cobbled-together half-Kerobottri exoship that shakes when you try to engage its makeshift FTL drive, but, hey, it comes with no questions asked. And it’s not like he has any reason to be picky; he’s just trying to get a couple of gate-trips ahead of Kiva’s people before he finds a spaceport and settles down to get drunk.

The place he ends up in is a shithole clustered around the North Pole of a medium-sized planet in the Formalhaut Debris Ring, about twenty-two light years from Earth. It’s a frozen, sandy desert with a dozen tiny speckling moons above it, and not a single building more than three stories tall. It caters to frack miners running hot crews through the debris ring, which the LA’s First and Second House periodically squabble over, and the occasional Goa’uld war criminal hoping to lay low. That makes it a good place for Telford, even if the liquor is shitty. So he hauls out some of the raw data crystals that he stripped off the Sixth House tel’tak and pays enough to dock his ship, then keeps paying until the barkeeper at the watering hole hands over the bottle.

It’s whatever the latest thing is that the Lucian kids are cooking up out of kassa. It doesn’t really taste like anything; just like ethanol and antiseptic. He hunkers down in his ship and knocks the stuff back without a chaser. And again. And then again. For a while, grimly determined, that’s all he does: limiting his world to the fumes that he breathes out, and the back of his throat, where the mucous membrane is burning.

He doesn’t have a jacket anymore, but he’s got what the bounty hunter threw in with the exoship: a couple of Himalayan-looking blankets made out of knotted-up fibers, and a hooded coat lined with some kind of animal fur. So he puts the coat on, and, after a while, the hood too, then drags one of the blankets over his shoulders and breathes into his cupped hands. He can smell the coat’s earthy leather, and whatever it is that fur smells like. The air smells like naquadah and ozone. He looks out over the bulks of the ships, great beasts sleeping in the desert on every side of the outpost-city, some as tall as the buildings and twice as big. The dim light of the sun, filtered through dust clouds, glints off the shinier of their surfaces, along with the occasional scattered fleck of a moon. They’re like shrapnel wounds, that spray of moons— not quite regular enough to be strafe-marks, but deep enough that you can see the inside of whatever it is that was punctured.

He takes another abrupt swig of the liquor.

He thinks his first step should be to take stock of what he has left. The Hemingway is gone now, and the Dostoevsky. The— assorted personal knickknacks that he hadn’t needed anyway. He took enough shit off the tel’tak to last him a little while if he barters, but when he’d made his elaborate back-up plans, he always assumed he’d be leaving from Earth. So he hasn’t got a whole hell of a lot of assets out here in deep space. He can always sell intel, but that comes with the risk of someone back-tracing the information. Or he can take the sensible option and just turn mere. It’s what a lot of guys did on Earth, anyway, after they’d left the service, if they’d gotten deep in debt or just couldn’t fit in.

He’d tried to imagine it himself, when he was younger: leaving the service. Retiring. Consulting. Security. A house, a car, a wife, a couple of kids. On some level that language didn’t reach down to, the thought had always repelled him. He’d thought that if he tried it, he would end up like one of those guys you heard about who just went missing, just up and walked away from their lives one day. They turned up twenty years later running a tackle shop off the coast of Alaska, or flying prop planes in the South Pacific, or else they didn’t turned up, and stayed question marks forever, strangers who had sealed whatever secret they carried so well inside them that they had taken it, totally unknown, to their graves.

It was possible to do that. It wasn’t a failure. Maybe it even meant that you’d won. Whatever was inside you, you’d kept it: pure and unsullied, a hard bright crystal, a fuel you could burn. It was uncontaminated and yours forever.

He can feel it inside him now: a pain in the region of his chest, close to but not exactly contiguous with the heart.

He drinks and watches cosmic dust catch the amber glow of the distant sunlight.

A cold wind shifts and rattles the sand.

***

An ice storm in the morning, with no rain: only hailstones rattling like pebbles against the walls of the exoship. He wakes from a restless sleep still wrapped in fur and heavy blankets. He feels like God has picked up the box he’s hiding in and shaken it right next to His ear to hear if anything left inside still scuttles. He thinks about Rush explaining Wittgenstein’s beetle. There is something alive in us, though it may be a very singular creature. It may not be what other people thought— hoped— it was.

Still. Something scuttles. Insect legs against the siding.

He erases his travel history in the ship’s computer and swallows down another couple fingers of kassa liquor for breakfast, tunelessly humming Mahler under his breath, then throws it up an hour later courtesy of his hangover.

When he stands, he sees starbursts against the array of evening. It’s not really evening, of course; there’s not really night or day, this close to the magnetic pole of a planet, unless you count the constant half-dim polar twilight. One long night lasting half a year, deranging the little rock’s temporalities like every other kind of measurement was deranged by the location. Get too close to the axis of something, and you lose all sense of how to chart it.

He’s familiar with the problem.

***

Ships come and go like fireflies in a summer time-lapse, their engines burning off into the dusk.

It’s fall on Earth, he guesses. So: no more fireflies, which: fuck ‘em, anyway. They only last a few months before they’re done. Like humans, when seen from an Ascended perspective. Little chips of mica; little specks of dust. You could lose a fistful and not notice, so why should they matter?

He thinks of Rush sinking his hands in the floor up to the wrists, as though he could reach down and reclaim the mineral flecks trapped there for eons. As though the whole universe were just water, none of it yet set in stone around him.

It should’ve been me, Telford thinks. It should’ve been me who—

But he hadn’t had the genes.

Always something missing.

***

He doesn’t speak English out here. He speaks the degraded Babylonian of Sixth House. Or at least that’s what Jackson had always said it was— the bastard child of Akkadian and Aramaic, mixed with the Hebrew dialects of the Asar planets, sort of like what might have happened if the Babylonian Empire still existed. He’d had to learn it from scratch when he went undercover the first time, in case the translation matrix ever encountered a glitch. It was hard work, but he was good at it, at least according to Jackson. Jackson had seemed faintly surprised; Telford had said, “You thought I’d be as dumb as a brick.” “No,” Jackson had said, but his eyes had slid guiltily away. Telford had smirked, grimly pleased by the implied admission. Jackson had said, too hurriedly, “I didn’t. II wasn’t surprised because— I mean, I wasn’t alluding to— obviously that’s not what I meant.”

What he’d meant didn’t interest Telford. At forty-two years old, he’d had every version of that conversation, the one that was all ellipses. The last thing he wanted was to rehash them again with fucking Jackson. So, instead, he’d said, “Aramaic in space. Doesn’t it ever make you wonder?”

Jackson had looked uncomfortable. He’d adjusted his glasses with both hands. “Wonder what?”

“Oh, don’t play coy with me. If Jesus was— you know.”

“Extraterrestrial, you mean? A Goa’uld? The idea’s been floated.”

“And?”

They’d been sitting in an empty conference room, waiting for some meeting to start; it had been late, Telford thinks now, or very early; there had been this hush, like sound was suppressed. Sometimes late at night there, he’d feel like he was under the ocean: the pressure deforming his eardrums, till all he could hear was the rush of his own blood. Jackson had toyed with a pencil, balancing it on the side of one finger. Unbidden, Telford had been reminded of the Egyptian scale of justice, where your heart was weighed against a feather after you were dead. The image had seemed apt; Daniel, he’d thought, what a fan-fucking-tastic Eternal Judge you’d make, sitting there with your schoolboy pout and your moralizing.

Without looking up, Jackson had said, “Oh, I don’t know. Not really the Goa’uld modus operandi, is it?”

“No? Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s; forget about getting what you deserve, and God’s going to magically provide you with loaves and fishes?”

“That seems like a very thin interpretation of the Gospels.”

Telford had half-laughed incredulously. “You’re going to come over all Christian on me, Jackson?”

Jackson flattened his pout out into a thin line. “I hardly think it has to be Christian to suggest that the impulse behind one of Earth’s major religions, and a full interpretation of its sacred texts, is about more than just the redistribution of resources.”

“So— what, then?” Telford moved restlessly in his chair.

“Divine justice,” Jackson said. He had the air of someone offering a challenge. “The idea that there’s something beyond us, some truth, some ultimate harmony or knowledge. Something that we’re a part of, if we want to be— if we want to be good.”

Telford had felt incredulous. “Knowledge,” he’d repeated. “Ultimate knowledge.”

“You don’t think that’s what God is? Knowledge?” Jackson seemed genuinely curious. His forehead was furrowed.

“Well,” Telford said, “for starters, I don’t think God is good.”

“I can’t tell you how amazed I am to hear it.” Jackson’s mouth gained a sad quirk. He looked down, at where the pencil was perfectly balanced on his finger. “So: not harmonious, but maybe— maybe still knowledge.”

Telford had shaken his head— slowly at first, and then faster, like a round of sardonic applause building. “Don’t get me wrong, Jackson— I know you’ve been a floating space octopus of pure light and shit, and gotten the sublime wisdom of the Ancients, but to paraphrase a much wiser man than myself: kid, I’ve flown from one side of this galaxy to the other, and I’ve seen a lot of strange stuff, but I’ve never seen anything to make me believe that all I need is more information, like a giant celestial textbook is going to make it all make sense.”

“That wasn’t what I meant,” Jackson said.

But he looked hurt; stung, somehow. His face had closed off. He curled his fist around the pencil. Telford had felt a brief surge of triumph; he liked defeating Jackson. At the same time, he had recognized Jackson’s expression. Back then, he hadn’t known why or what it meant. Now, he remembers it and senses some vague association with the dreams in which he tries to find the Chinese room. He wants to trust that there’s a place in which the answers will all be provided. He wants a dictionary that will teach him how to be a man. Unlike Jackson, though, he doesn’t think that one exists. There are no universals. There is no truth that we are trying to uncover in the only way that Jackson would’ve understood— the way an archeologist sifts through layers of dirt, patiently looking for the pieces that were once part of a coin, a corpse, a kettle, before the annihilating storm of history blew through. There’s a churning mass that has never had a meaning. It isn’t moving towards or away from something. It just is what it is.

When he was undercover, speaking Babylonian had helped; he’d felt like a different person. He’d felt like he was moving through a different world, one that wasn’t organized according to the same kind of principles he’d grown up with. There was no right or wrong to it; just a different set of facts. He took to it like a fish to water, once he’d mastered the language. The sense of alienation was familiar to him. When he went back to Earth between assignments, that was the strange part— standing in his own house, his own kitchen.

And now he never has to go back there. Never has to speak English again, if he doesn’t want to. He can move through different languages, different truths, like putting uniforms on and taking them off when you’re finished.

“Shkarum,” he says to the bartender, tapping the bar with two emphatic fingers. “Ak shkarum yahab, vakash.”

His accent is very good.

***

[mousehole5000]

tgcf lb the fourth chapter 23 - 33

“hmmm looks like theres people in the fertilizer. i shan’t say a word” ok king of minding your business i guess

oh looks like it has a long tongue. oh i dont care for that at all

The build of their bodies were similar, and atop their shoulders, all of them carried cudgels that were densely covered in sharp wolf teeth. It created an illusion that a pack of wolves had transformed into people. attack of the furries? okay.

It was easy to comprehend after thinking about it. This person had been buried in the desert sand for fifty to sixty years. The flesh of his body had long been transformed into nutrients for those Kindred Moon Herbs. He had been entirely consumed until the only thing remaining was a mere skeleton. when this book isnt being very funny its being very grim!!! yikes!! also this was an episode of hannibal 

Ke Mo definitely had never heard someone ask to go first in this place. His eyes widened and looked like bells as he asked in astonishment, “You want to go first? For what reason??” Xie Lian naturally couldn’t reply and say it was because he wasn’t scared. Thus, he chose an answer that conformed with the norms of society. “General, these are merely innocent merchants just passing through. They even have a child amongst them.” - love watching the immortals trying to act like humans. would have been funny if xie lian had just hit em with “well i cant die so its chill”

That young man had crossed his arms. With an indifferent gaze, he thoughtfully sized up the deep Sinners’ Pit.　　 A bad premonition sprung up unbidden in Xie Lian’s heart. “San Lang?”　　 When he heard Xie Lian call him, San Lang turned his head. He smiled faintly and said, “Everything’s fine.” - edgy bastard lets go

What Ke Mo had been cursing was, “It’s this slut again!” - me when a corpse gets up and knocks all my soldiers into the sinner’s pit what a relatable reaction

oh now im switching translations here we go

does hua cheng just straight up transform in the darkness? edgy bastard. also  hualian having their little discussion while ke mo keeps trying to attack im still amused by these kinds of shenanigans

banyue guoshi ma’am your backstory.... rough. im on your side im sure you had your reasons

why do the soldiers keep her up near the top of the pit of death if she keeps getting up and knocking them all in? am i missing something? or are they just that dumb/dead fjdf;adjsf

fu yao: y’all alive? lmk. if not ill guess ill go back to the the merchants who totally promised to stay put in the circle. in case its not clear i do not care what happens to said merchants.

hua xie... of course thats the fucking name he picked. also looks like that wasnt so much a parallel being drawn between xie lian and the general as it was the same exact line

fasdlkfjsldfdsf god xie lian really has a hard time. you help some orphans, you try to keep people from dying, you try to save an orphan and you trip and get trampled but you cant die so you wake up in a river full of corpses and just float away. actually tbh i really appreciate him as an immortal character this is the shit i like to see. love xie lian ready to defend himself from the slander of being completely flattened. he was only mostly flattened

cunty vibes so strong all the wildlife in a 10 foot radius just chuck up the deuces and split

ITS RAINING SCORPION SNAKES. THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO PUSH A REVEAL. love that the umbrella is just always on hand

okay i guess fucking. everyone is here now why not. we’re all in a hole covered in scorpions and everyone knows each other but not everyone is admitting it but we know. we know. still not 100% sure what is going wrt pei su/pei ming/general pei/pei junior im a bit confused idk

okay i cant explain it but im attached to him now.

i like banyue. i feel like theres going to be a few background female characters i really like but im not so sure theyll get a lot of development. wind master come back you and your lady friend i would like to know more of you. anyway fuck this pei guy(s?). also they just put banyue in a jar? fair enough

is xie lian another mc who cant cook? so much so that everyone who knows him just leaves if he offers? love that for him

okay we’ve got ONE identity admitted. i liked how casual it was. i wonder if hc was waiting for this bc yeah he was not subtle i feel like he definitely wanted xie lian to know. if he didnt then bruh. get lessons in how to act human please

screaming. no words. cant wait to meet him. and hua cheng please keep up the good work. i love that now we’re just. sitting. chatting. chilling. okay.

yeah it makes sense that hes an immortal i think you would have to take this attitude after 800 years

this authors note about not writing ugly characters.... fjkdalfdjfa obviously i dont think holding beauty as such high standard is good it warps our views and values etc etc but also i would expect nothing less from a story like this. yes we know everyone is going to be beautiful theyre immortal and beautiful and young forever

lmao at exile being a temporary banishment for crimes.... yeah that sounds about right tbh. rich elite fuckers

oh good we haven’t forgotten about human face disease boy. im wondering when we’re going to find out how important he will be bc he clearly matters otherwise he’d have been resolved already also yeah how tf does he have that disease that sure sounds like an issue

i dont like him. pei ming i also wish you to die of syphilis. also of fucking COURSE xie lian’s cultivation method doesnt let him read dirty books

im just saving this because its funny

okay lang qianqiu i see you falling asleep at the meeting. i like you already but you are not above suspicion. actually you know what i suspect you already. crown prince of the kingdom that conquered xianle? idk if youre good or bad but you know something i learned this lesson from beloved morally grey huaisang

okay last comment for this post. mxtx’s little authors note about everyone being straight except for hualian but you can make up headcanons as long as you dont split hualian up fjdlfakdj. i just find it silly to write a story thats so clearly for an audience that understands shipping and ships often and say not to split a specific couple up but i mean to be fair i kind of get it that sentiment as an author and not wanting people to do certain things with your work, although again i think its silly

i guess the point of this note is just to be clear that no one else is going to get together so no one argues about it and i dont actually know much about how this was published but it seems like it was serialized so i can see why that would be an issue. personally i dont really care for knowing stuff like that ahead of time but i know a lot of people do and it seems to be thing in other cnovels ive seen to know whos going to get together as far as major characters are concerned i guess thats part of the draw and i guess i kind of get it

not sure how much other romance will be in this but also i think its kind of ridiculous to be like “these are the only two gay characters” in a cast that just keeps growing but whatever shes really leaving that work up to the readers to make it happen which they’ll do anyways so whatever. also there had to be at least one of the 33 officials who fought hua cheng who thought he was hot. theres no way that didnt happen

[ineffably-effable]

Come up and see me (make me smile)

Mesopotamia, 3004 BC

Summary:  Mesopotamia, 3004 BC.

1690 words

AN: Couldn’t get this scene out of my head, it continues the role-reversal au started in Come up and see me (make me smile)

Thanks again to @mia-ugly for being being an amazing beta reader.

(read on ao3)

Crowley was in a horrible mood. He had spent the better part of the week arguing with his superiors, and all he had to show for it was a splitting headache and a reputation as a bleeding-heart humanitarian. 

So, instead of wasting his breath, Crowley had chosen to channel his rage into protecting the eight measly lives he was permitted to save. This was the reason he was standing in the hot sun, in the midst of the crowd that had turned out to watch wild animals being wrangled by three absurdly unqualified men. A few feet from Crowley, he overheard a woman sniping to her husband, “It’s a miracle those idiots haven’t been mauled to death", and was sorely tempted to tell her just how right she was. 

It was only a short while later, right when he was contemplating the morality of letting Shem get kicked by a giraffe, that Crowley felt a tap on his shoulder and turned (the wrong way first, sneaky bastard ) to see a familiar salt-and-pepper haired demon grinning cheerfully at his side. 

“Crowley! I thought it was you! Those flaming locks of yours are quite distinctive,” he babbled excitedly, charming in a way that softened Crowley’s bad mood considerably. 

“Hello, Aziraphale.” he said, trying very hard not to smile. 

“I don’t suppose you know what all this is about?” Aziraphale asked. “Did upstairs request some sort of nautical menagerie?” 

Crowley smirked.  

“I’m sure I have no idea what you mean.” 

“Please. I could sense the divine energy holding that thing together from a mile away.”

“I’d hardly be a decent angel if I went around divulging divine plans to my occult foe,” Crowley teased.

“Oh, don’t be so… prejudiced.”

“Prejudiced?”

“It means narrow-minded, discriminatory.” Azirphale informed him, smugly.

“I know what it m-”

“So what’s going on?” Aziraphale interrupted. “Why would you build it so far inland? Are you expecting a flood?”

“A flood?” (Crowley, who was painfully aware of how high his voice had just pitched, determinedly ignored Aziraphale’s raised eyebrow and sidelong glance.) “Of course not-  why would you- I mean- that would be an awful lot of rain- and the area is in a drought so- you know what- don’t you dare laugh at me!”  

“ My dear, you’re very fetching when you’re flustered.” 

(Fetching.)

Crowley had a horrible suspicion his face had turned as red as his hair.

(He thinks you’re f-)

“For the love of- demon, please go pester someone else.” 

“Where would be the fun in that?” he replied cheekily, glancing from the boat to the surrounding crowds. His expression sobered.

“I hope you’ll forgive me asking, but that doesn’t seem like a very large boat,” he pursed his lips, “especially not with all those animals.” He turned to look at Crowley. “How many humans are you planning to squeeze in there?”

Crowley could feel his bad mood returning with a vengeance.

“All in all? Eight.” Crowley tried to keep his voice level. 

“Eight? ”  Aziraphale repeated, in the dry tone of someone who had heard perfectly well the first time, but would prefer a different answer.

“Eight.” Crowley confirmed.

“ She’s going to drown everybody else ?” 

“The other continents will be excluded, and most of this one, it’s really just the space enclosed by the two great rivers,” Crowley said flatly, repeating almost verbatim the answer he’d received from Gabriel. Aziraphale had gone pale.

“That’s- hundreds of settlements, thousands of people…” he trailed off as a group of children ran past them, giggling. He stared at Crowley with a horrified expression on his face. 

Crowley nodded miserably. 

“Oh Crowley.”  The unexpected sympathy in the demon’s voice felt like a gut-punch. Aziraphale reached out - perhaps to squeeze Crowley’s shoulder - but retracted his hand guiltily, when the angel flinched away from the offered comfort.

“It’s not like they asked me for my opinion. They didn’t even have the decency to tell me in person.” Crowley grit his teeth. “Gabriel sent a memo .” 

“Crowley…”

“Oh, and get this, after it’s done, She’s going to promise not to do it again by refracting light through the leftover water in the atmosphere. Isn’t that nice? ” His tone was scathing now, he felt hot tears pooling in his eyes but he didn’t care. He was about to continue, really lay into some of the idiotic notions Gabriel had used to explain the affair, when he felt a tentative hand resting on his arm.

“I think,” Aziraphale said slowly - as if he were talking Crowley down from a cliff’s edge - “that you’re upset, and you need to choose your words very carefully.” 

Crowley waved off the demon’s concern.

“We’re allowed to have doubts, as long as we’re good soldiers and follow orders. It’s only questioning Her outright that leads to trouble.” 

“Is that so?” Aziraphale said, face blank. Crowley couldn’t look at him.

Instead they both watched the chaos together, silently observing as one of the unicorns escaped the containment area and made a break for it. 

Crowley wondered if the ineffable plan anticipated the extinction of that species, or if it was just dumb luck.

“What if there were another boat?” Aziraphale asked out of nowhere.

Crowley scoffed. 

“We’re in the middle of the desert. Who else would be building another boat?”

Aziraphale, who had been staring at Crowley expectantly, stayed silent. 

Crowley frowned.

“You can’t.” 

“Can’t miracle anything too big, no,” the demon mused. “Won’t be enough space for everyone obviously, but might do for a score of children, maybe even some adults.” He had a distant expression on his face, as though he were doing the arithmetic right then and there. 

“Aziraphale. It’s out of the question.” 

“Your opinion has been duly noted.” 

“What if you get caught ?” Crowley asked, voice strained.

Aziraphale laughed bitterly, “I don’t see your lot down here getting their hands dirty,“ he said snidely. “A storm seems like an exceptionally passive aggresive method of genocide.” 

Crowley would have agreed with that point, if he weren’t trying to talk the demon out of getting himself smote or worse.

“What about your lot? You think they’ll look favourably on an act of compassion?!” 

“Compassion? I’m a demon, dear boy, thwarting the will of heaven is literally in the job description.” He smiled reassuringly at Crowley. “If they’re truly sinners we’ll get them in the end, and if they’re not, well at least we’ll have a chance at tempting them.” He shrugged. “Hell, I can even bring some teenagers on board, stock the boat with some fermented juice,  that’ll guarantee some licentiousness.” 

Crowley could feel a headache coming on.

“Why are you telling me this?”

Aziraphale’s brow furrowed in confusion.

“I thought it might make you feel better?” he said, sounding very much like he thought it was obvious. “Surely you can’t want children to die?”

“I- that’s- not the point. God’s plans are ineff- oh, don’t smirk at me - so what am I supposed to do, just look the other way?”

“When the time comes you’ll be on the ark,” the demon said, matter-of-factly, “It gives you plausible deniability - even an angel can’t be everywhere at once.” 

“You’ve really thought this through.” It could work, Crowley was shocked to find himself thinking.

“You needn’t sound so surprised.” Aziraphale replied, insulted.

Crowley laughed.

“To be fair, this is a bit of a leap from accidentally abetting original sin. I need a second to adjust.”

“You’re awfully snippy for an angel, dear.” 

“Oh, shut up.”

“That reminds me, how did giving away your sword work out for you?“ 

Crowley bit his lip.

(When he’d been asked outright by the Almighty - Where is the sword I gave you, Crowliel - he’d caved immediately. Shame-faced he’d admitted what he’d done to protect the humans and, in lieu of punishment, he received the ethereal equivalent of having his hair ruffled. He had been sent on his way with the warm feeling of being hugged, and the sound of her gentle laughter warm in his chest.)

“Crowley?” 

“Oh… I got the feeling She was amused by it,” he said, embarrassed.

“She must have a soft spot for you,” Aziraphale said, in a tone that was difficult to read. He looked away. “How long is the flood meant to last anyway?”

“Once the storm starts? Forty days and forty nights.” 

“Hmm. Heaven does like their nice tidy numbers don’t they.” Crowley wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Aziraphale gave him an apologetic smile. “I should probably get going. Heavenly plans to thwart, no rest for the wicked and so on.” 

“Ah, yes,” Crowley responded, dumbly. A little surprised (but definitely not hurt) by the abrupt transition. He wasn’t sure why he wanted to delay the demon’s departure, but when Aziraphale turned to leave, Crowley found himself speaking up.

“Maybe I’ll see you around afterwards then?” he asked.

Aziraphale’s yellow eyes lit up. Suddenly nervous, Crowley back-pedaled, “I’ll have to er- try and salvage all those souls you’ve damned.” 

Aziraphale studied his face, giving Crowley a scrutinizing look that slowly morphed into a bemused expression. 

“You’re welcome to give it your best shot, angel,” he replied with a grin. 

Before Crowley could snark back the demon had vanished.

It was funny, Crowley thought, that the demon had been the one to come up with a way to save people. That he could even be bothered to try.

(“Be funny if we both got it wrong eh? If I did the bad thing and you did the good one?” )

Above him the sky was growing dark with approaching storm clouds. The first drops of rain had started to fall and a sharp, loud, crack of thunder rang out.  

Crowley cringed.

On second thought, it wasn’t very funny at all.

[gaymafia]

I’m legitimately curious why people didn’t like the last Jedi? I saw it and thought it was okay? Is there something I missed or? Like it wasn’t great but it was passable?

ok so i wasnt gonna do this here bc nobody fucking asked but u asked so thank u but also strap in ur ready for a while ride

TLJ spoilers, obviously. also my issues are going to be numbered in no particular order bc my thoughts on this movie are so fucking scrambled but here we go

1. Kyle Ron. First of all fuck Ryeanne for making me see so many goddamn closeups of Adam Driver’s ugly ass face. I did not need to see all that he is so goddamn ugly especially that fucking shirtless scene where he looks like a block of pasty ass pale wood.

But for real, Kylo Ren. I don’t actually take issue with his existence, because Kyle really does excellently represent rich ass white boys who have everything handed to them but throw a hissy fit when they face the slightest adversity an throw tantrums all the time. It’s nice to see a villain that represents most people real-life nightmares instead of like, a Sexy Temptress or Old Evil Man or whatever. That being said, kyle is not given the villain’s treatment in this movie. if you cut out all the scenes where ryan is not actively sucking adam driver’s dick and jizzing all over himself over kyle’s angsty white boy angst, the movie has virtually no real plot (”oh no we are in space with no fuel, nobody is going to do anything except get mad at each other, miscommunicate, and deliberately make all the characters of color worthless while separating Finn and Poe bc fuck the gays”). So much of the movie is spent not just establishing how kyle became kyle (which is good! backstory for villains is good!), but trying to get us to like, sympathize with him? which is the shitty part. I dont care that Luke “”””tried to kill”’’’ (he didn’t) kyle. kyle had turned to the dark side before luke’s mistake. kyle had a million and one chances to change his mind from the start of TFA to the end of TLJ, and he never did. Kyle is an evil guy. We need one of those. He’s a great evil guy bc he’s got so many shitty qualities. But ryin doesnt want us to hate kyle, even tho hes the villain. why the fuck doesnt reean want us to hate kyle? bc rayan is also a shitty little man who thinks giving ur white boy a sob story makes him a sympathetic villain and sidelining ur characters of color will help.

also again the fucking shirtless scene what the shit man that was so gross

2. Will be broken down into A, B, C, etc. bc TLJ treats its characters of color like SHIT. 

2A. Finn. Finn gets put in a coma bc why would anyone want to write anything interesting for john boyega its not like hes the MOST BEAUTIFUL MAN and the MOST TALENTED ACTOR who is being sidelined bc ryun hates black people. Yeah Finn is totally into Rey and he wants to save her and is willing to desert the rebellion for her. that happened in the first movie but why give your characters real arcs when you can recycle old ones to jerk off to kyle ron. the rose thing happens, shes like “we can disable the tracking” and like TWO SECONDS after he was dead set on desertion he’s totally down to risk his life for the rebellion at rey’s expense? that sure is a quick 180 with no real reason why and no writing to explain it! then there was the whole “separate finn and poe” thing ryain pulled for the shits and giggles.

2B. Rose. I was pretty chill with Rose, she had a dope backstory, her sister was badass, and I liked that they made that connection off the bat. I’m not mad about anything rayn did with her character but i genuinely believe thats only because i havent thought about it enough yet. give me a week and i’ll figure out how rain fucked it up. open to suggestions.

2C. Poe. Full offense but was I supposed to be mad at Poe for coming up with a plan when that bitch Holdo was like “I’m not gonna tell you my plan sit tight and be convinced we are all going to die :)” i legitimately did not understand how I was supposed to be mad at poe for doing what he thought was best for the rebellion after he asked holdo what the plan was and she was deliberately obstinate and refused to even be like “dont worry i have a plan” she was just like. so dumb. Also poe got thrown around a lot and i am A Little Suspicious of how much physical violence he experienced compared to many other characters.

2D. You guessed what was next! The slaps! Super awesome how the two men of color were slapped by white people!!!! So deep!!!!!!! For real tho uh the second time i saw this movie someone in the audience laughed when poe got slapped by space hitler hux and uh??? not funny. not funny or cute or clever to use the guy you built your entire nazi imagery on to slap the one black man on your cast. i dont care if it was supposed to make us “hate hux” or whatever more. i already hated hux reyn. you could have used that screentime in your 3 fucking hour long movie for something valuable, like giving finn a character arc, or literally anything else besides that goddamn slap. i was livid watching that.

and then with leia and poe? i get that part of the conflict was internal in the resistance and one of the major themes was how failure is the best teacher and all that but like? maybe stop physically assaulting all your characters of color? maybe uhhhh at least think about that first??

2E. like i mentioned before one of the obvious themes was how failure is the best teacher so naturally all the major characters had to fail at something, and then learn from their mistake to be better next time. with luke it was fucking up with kyle, with rey it was being naive enough to think kyle could turn, with poe it was the dreadnaught thing, finn was left out of this because raan dooesn give a shit abt finn bc hes a racist bastard, etc. but it was incredibly transparent how all of the white characters’ mistakes meant either personal losses or something small scale with one person, while the mistakes of the characters of color (poe/finn/rose) were all ones that cost the rebellion the vast majority of their forces. rey got out of her fight with kyle and snoke unscathed. luke got a lot of guilt and character development. What did finn poe and rose get? the deaths of like 99% of the resistance on their shoulders. A little too coincidental that even though rey LITERALLY GAVE HERSELF OVER TO SNOKE she was totally fine a-ok no real scars, finn and poe and rose doing their best to save the rebellion while admiral holdo refuses to tell them anything costs the resistance so fucking much. rey does the DUMBEST FUCKING THING with no real consequences and finn and poe and rose try their best and are punished severely for it.

2F. Really convenient how everything finn, poe, and rose did ended up being useless and just cost the rebellion lives, whereas at least rey’s mishap got snoke killed and taught her a lesson. reeeeaaaalllllyyyyyy convenient how finn, poe, and rose’s plan was a huge waste of time. it would have been much better for us to see an actual plot line with them that contributed to the story and their characterizations instead of “send them on a goose chase, make it pointless in the end, physically brutalize them along the way.

3. R*yl* bullSHIT: ryyn had a really fun time with a lot of very rape-y scenes in this movie. the whole force-connection thing with kyle and rey was soooooo uncalled for, it reeked of non-con fantasies, catered to the r*yl*s like nothing ever before, and was so goddamn gross. the obvious invasion of privacy and lack of consent was nasty, using it as a shitty device to make rey “come around” on kyle was NASTY and that whole thing was nasty. i know im not articulating this well but there was so much about that whole thing that bothered me. i just know reyhan was so fucking into it, inserting kyle into rey’s life, forcing her to completely drop all of her characterization in the first movie to suddenly thing kyle can be good, acting as if rey hasnt seen all the shit and known what hes done. the whole thing was gross and a really obvious example of why men shouldn’t be allowed to direct movies.

4. killing snoke was a dumbass fucking mistake. kyle is a tantrum-throwing temper-losing toddler. snoke was evil and mysterious and shit idk. we knew he was powerful as fuck, he looked like a testicle which is a great villain imo, he was the darth sidious and they killed him off while kyle is still in like. ep2!Anakin levels of angst. i get that kyle is already powerful or whatever but like. hes not cold and calculated the way snoke was. kyle is a good villain, but a weak main baddie bc hes dumb as fuck. he let the rebellion get away bc he was pissed at luke. that was dumb as fuck. kyle is ruined by his emotions, and snoke was a scarier main baddie bc he wasnt so fucking dumb lol

5. it was so fucking long. there were so many scenes that could have been cut or shortened. why did we need to see luke milking the tiddy of that weird alien cow thing. why did we need to see kyle ron shirtless. why did we need so many goddamn shots of the fucking porgs.

6. ya the porgs are cute or whatever but like. that whole “look at how sad the cute big-eyes porg is when chewie is eating his friend” thing was so dumb. i dunno why but i hated that the most. that was the worst thing the porgs did. they were cute but like chill disney u know they like ran algorithm after algorithm to make that porg the cutest it could be with science or some bullshit and like? thats dumb.

7. i get that the humor in star wars movies is shifting but i felt like there was too much of it and it was dumb. a lot of the riffs werent funny and there were too many of them for a star wars film. star wars usually doesnt take itself too seriously, but this one was a little too much for me.

8. there were too many plot twists for shock value. the story went on too long. it should have ended earlier but it didnt. i dont know why ryenn decided to have like 6 different climaxes but it was too much. should have let there be one climax buddy. thats it.

9. holdo. besides holdo being the white feminist icon why didnt she just fucking tell poe the plan. why. why was so deliberately obstinate when it was doing no good. like yeah of course poe sent out a crew to try to save the rebellion all u told him to shut up and let you handle it! obvously what she did in the end was badass or whatever but like uh hun next time dont be a piece of shit and then get mad when people react to you being a piece of shit. i would have been okay with all that happening if holdo wasnt treated like some hero who never made any mistakes. she did make a mistake, and that was refusing to tell poe what her plan was when she knew he was absolutely the type to do whatever he could to save the rebellion whether he had her permission or not. also apparently holdo is a lesbian or bi or not straight or something in like the comics or whatever and like 1. classic bury ur gays but also 2. no more word of god gay characters if a character is not gay in the movies i will not give you the gay cred for it sorry homophobes

10. i didnt buy the story w luke and kyle at lukes jedi training facility or whatever. surprisingly, i was ok with lukes story line and character development, and actually agreed with it for the most part, but i just like. i dunno i didnt feel like that was something luke would do. not because luke is infallible (even tho he is my gay dad who has never done anything wrong ever) but because the entire original trilogy is luke believing darth vader could be saved. and while im not opposed to luke changing his mind about whether or not everyone could be turned away from the dark side (luke was young and optimistic in the original trilogy, and as he grew older he would learn more about the jedi and their history like the whole speech he gave rey about how the jedi have to end bc theyre lowkey shitty). i actually kind of liked luke’s hot take on the jedi, because it was lowkey my hot take on the jedi (esp the prequels jedi who were shitty as Fuuuuuck but we are ignoring the prequels for now lbr) but also because i could believe it was a view luke would come to as he aged. but impulsively drawing his lightsaber to kill kyle before he had actually done anything bad, after suspecting that kyle had darkness in him for a while, even though he felt like he had failed? it just didnt feel like luke to me. i felt more like raeyn had chosen that particular backstory to try to make kyle a more sympathetic villain rather than give a believable and in-character back story for the characters. i understand that luke’s failure ultimately has to lead to the creation of kyle ron in this story line, but that didnt feel like the right failure to me. maybe this is just me being nitpicky but that felt off to me too and i dont know if i can quite pinpoint why.

11. rey was a dumbass fucking bitch in this movie. rey could not be a dumbass fucking bitch to survive as a scavenger who was orphaned at birth on jakku. rey would have had to be smart and not as fucking DUMB as she was in this movie. now im getting heated so i cant articulate this well but she just did so many dumb things that anybody who had to raise themselves would have never done. she would never have delivered herself over to kyle ron like what a dumb fucking idea. who wrote this goddamn movie. fuck u ryeen.

12. why did yoda come back as a force ghost. where is anakins force ghost. he would be so fucking pissed at kyle right now. he would be mad as hell. he would have ended this thing. he would have called kyle out like the shitdickbitch he is and put him in his place. i get that yoda is more like ancient and orginal star wars jedi knowledge shit or whatever and like more of an authority on the jedi but like anakin is off in like force ghost hawaii drinking force ghost martinis while his shitty fucking grandson is being a piece of shit?? nah man anakin would have shut that shit down they better bring him back for ep IX and i expect hayden christensen himself to show up to bitch at kyle about what a fucking dumbass he is.

tbh theres probably more like i know there’s a ton of little things i hated but as scathing as this review is there were things i liked. visually speaking it was a very beautiful movie when we werent getting atrocious close ups of adam drivers ugly ass face. i originally hated but have come to appreciate the darker tone, since it mirrors the mood of TESB in that the rebellion seems dead but obviously isnt bc this is star wars. i liked luke. i dunno. i had a lot of issues with the movie obviously. to be quite honest i cant actually think of anything else i liked atm which is telling.

anyway if anybody actually reads this long ass fucking post feel free to respond with what you hated abt TLJ

[memeingabout]

Heavy Rain

Sentences for rp means

Feel free to change as needed.

I kidnapped my son, but I can't remember what happened. I don't know where he is, but the only way to find him is to let me out of here. I'm the only person who can save him.

I love my son, I love my son. If you keep me here, Shaun is going to die.

I'm a father, too. But I have no choice.

I'm a father, too. But I am not a killer.

I... I killed a man. I had no choice. I had no choice!

You're mad. You're completely fuckin' mad!

I'm nowhere and I'm out of time. Damn fucking, shitty letter from this fucking, fucking address!! Come on! There's gotta be a way to do this!

I may only have time for one address. If shaun's not there I'm done (sighs) it's a crapshoot.

It's a restaurant...it's a goddamn restaurant! I got the wrong address! I screwed up! Everything! Christ! I'm so sorry...so sorry.

I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

Paco seems to like his girls sexy, sexy in a kind of dumb way...

Looks like I flunked flirt class... He hasn't even looked my way!

Time to play the sexy girl!

The lamp! If only I could find some way to grab it...

That's what I call kicking butt! You go, girl!

You haven't lost your touch, girl.

I know what you went through, Scott. You lost your twin brother. He was the only one who understood you, the only one who can talk to.

I understand you. There's nothing harder than not being loved by your parents. You must have been very brave.

I know you don't want to protect a murderer. If you know anything, you must tell us.

A child's life is at stake. You may know something that could help us save him.

Fuck! That asshole has gone too far this time!

I seem to spend most of my time getting the shit kicked outta me.

What was a journalist doing here?

She may be a witness.

Better be careful. The killer might be near...

The old docks, the perfect place for a killer.

Let's hope I'm not mistaken... There'll be no one to save Shaun Mars if I've come to the wrong place.

The rainfall has reached critical levels. There's not much time left if I want to find the kid alive...

Bastard, you're not gonna get away that easily...

If we don't find the killer, there'll be other mothers who'll find their son's body on a deserted wasteland. But you're right, why should you care? It's not your problem anymore, right?

Well, if you remember anything, the smallest detail, give me a call.

Goddamn asthma, can't breathe when it rains.

Oh, do you sell inhalers? I'm all out and at least I won't go away completely empty-handed...

Now I want you to put the gun back in your pocket and quietly walk out of the store. My friend and I will forget about what just happened and you'll have earned a second chance not to fuck up your life. What do you say?

Listen, an investigation like this is dangerous - and I don't have time to play the bodyguard.

So you found my little secret.

I've been looking for a long, long time, Ethan... Looking for a father that would be able to do what mine could not do: sacrifice himself in order to save his son. Oh, I searched, searched, and searched... And then, I remembered you.

You succeeded. You're the father that I have been looking for all these years, the man capable of giving his own life to save his son.

What are you doing here? You're supposed to be dead! DEAD!!

John and I were like one person. When he died, it was like a part of me died with him.

It wasn't bravery, it was love. I held his hand while he was drowning.

Go ahead, shoot. What are you waiting for?

What are you doin' here?!

You're NOT his father!

Only his father can save him!

You got no business here!

I've been waiting for so long for a father capable of giving his life for his son, and what do I get?! Nothing! Nobody! What's real love if it isn't sacrifice? All these people saying they love each other - they're just a PACK OF LIARS!!!

You shouldn't have got mixed up in this.

You discovered my little secret and it will die with you...

Save me! Please, save me!