okay Iāve seen a lot of posts about sterling just being crowley and. guys. the implications just hear me out ššš
bending lore slightly here BUT letās say crowleyās body was once inhabited by a human and crowley is possessing the body (maybe he kills the initial inhabitant bc he doesnāt care)
but he still has the guyās memories. he doesnāt bother keeping up appearances with his āex wifeā because he is too busy building up his hell empire. BUT for some reason he canāt quite identify, he still feels something towards his ādaughterā. he lets the divorce happen and doesnāt feel the need (or desire) to fight for custody, but he can never quite forget her, to cast her out of his mind for good
some hijinks ensue with the leverage team. itās mostly because even a grind culture demon wants some off time every once in a while, and for him the insurance investigator stuff is more of a hobby. interacting with the leverage crew is very low stakes for him, and honestly, quite amusing. they arenāt on his level power-wise, but that ford character gives him the mental exercise he hasnāt experienced in, well, he canāt even remember
he can feel their frustration and anger when they learn he has become employed by interpol and feeds off it. itās great, and relaxing in a way he is never able to achieve while conducting hell-related business
one year he gets wind that olivia is in a really bad situation associated with his āex wifeāsā new husband. heās selling vital hardware to terrorists, and while that might actually be the kind of chaos he would normally support or be entertained by as the king of hell, something feels wrong about letting olivia stay anywhere near that man
he calls upon the bodyās adversaries. he wouldnāt admit it, even under duress, BUT he feels slightly fond of them. nate for the three dimensional chess they play, sophie for her ability to charm and disguise, parker for her chaos and slightly unsettling nature (itās the autism swag and being bad with human interaction but he doesnāt know that lol), hardison for his unapologetic intelligence and eliot for his hardened violent past and take-no-shit persona (heās fun to tease)
they perform exactly as he expected, right into his carefully crafted plan. and then olivia is under his care and things get more complicated. he keeps her FAR, FAR away from anything related to the supernatural (heh). no one can find out about her, ESPECIALLY not those imbecile hunter brothers (if for nothing else than the embarrassment in revealing he has a weak spot)
not sure how to work it into this post but I also want to add that somewhere along the way he develops feelings for nate and sophie. the frame up job is near and dear to my heart and you canāt convince me that isnāt fighting as flirting behavior. his interpol persona is more of a side hustle so to speak, but he finds it fun (relaxing, even) to fill that role. there arenāt any obligations of other demons, bothersome hunters, or anything like that. nate and sophie are low stakes, except, they arenāt, really. they make him feel things he canāt ever really remember feeling. his heart beats fast when sophie sat in his lap and cradled his face, his hands sweat when nate gives him that certain smug look. heās exasperated by the way they can run circles around him like no one else has ever before. they annoy him and get under his skin in a way no one else can and itās infuriating. but also not, at the same time. maybe he likes it
and then the long goodbye job happens
hear me out and suspend your belief here for a second, because I canāt remember if crowley supernaturally knows when ppl die/are dead or not.
so nate is in interpol custody and the interviewer is obviously out of her depth. (most people are, when it comes to nathan ford.) he walks in and pours the man a drink, but heās fuming. somewhere along the way he came to care about the team. hell and suffering is literally in his (official) job description, but he can admit (only to himself) that he admires what they do. itās not for him, not anything close to where his passions and interests lie, but he respects their drive and purpose. he is also aware enough to acknowledge that they are a family, a group of misfits that never belonged quite anywhere except to each other.
and nate fucking blew it up, ruined it, because his vice is being so obsessed with the end game that he is apparently willing to let his team, his family, the people that anchor him to reality, die because the ends supposedly justify the means.
not this time. not to sterling crowley
he is enraged. he can admit within the confines of his mind that he cares for nate, for sophie, even for the other three (though nate and sophie have somehow made it a hierarchy where they are more important to him. which he will dissect later in private. maybe.)
nate let them die, he let sophie die, and for what? the black book? hell below, crowley would have made things easier somehow, if he knew that this was where nateās sights had lied. he would have prevented this somehow. he wants to have prevented this. he doesnāt want any of them dead and is too afraid to check and verify because that would make it real. the idea of sophie (or any of them) somehow making it to hell instead of heaven would probably break something in him he might not be able to reapir fully.
he yells at nate- heās angry. hellfire burning in his heart because everything is ruined. the deaths aside (however hard it is to set them aside in his mind), nate will not recover from this, not ever. this will be the start of the end, he is sure. a miserable, guilt-ridden existence where he drinks himself to death and nothing will save him. it plays out in crowleyās mind in a thousand different ways that are beyond painful to conceptualize, even in theory.
the story starts to unravel and there is a game afoot. a solemn, miserable, infuriating game because the con is still in session because parker is alive and in the building- which sets another fire alight in his chest. āparker even know you got hardison killed?ā he rages for her grief when she finds out. he knows it will double when she finds out eliot has perished, too, because he isnāt fucking blind.
but nate is a brilliant man, lest he forget too quickly. they are all alive, and somehow still the entire crew slips through his fingers. heās not even angry (he never would have been- he doesnāt actually try too hard to catch them. itās about the game, not the consequences). he lets them keep the black book because heās fucking exhausted and honestly, they more than earned it.
ānow weāre even. tell sophie to drive carefullyā. they will never be even, not really. crowley would never admit or agree that being human is the superior state of being, but that have made him feel human in a way he doesnāt actually mind. they keep him on his toes and match him in a way unique to them, they remind him that there are other things than the realm of hell. not necessarily bigger than hell, but maybe just as important in a different sense.
watching the van drive away, something inside him settles. when he walked into the interrogation room that day he thought this was the beginning of the end. itās not the end at all, not an end to anything. itās a continuation of their story. maybe, he thinks, a beginning to a new era in it
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I think people are focusing way too much on the s*xual side of things with Noa and Mae.
Likeā¦stop š
Iām going to assume no one here needs anything explicit to happen between them to ship them. If thatās the only way you consume ships, then thatās on you.
But by ācertainā logic, then shipping Noa, Soona and Anaya means you like to watch animals getting it on irl. Is this true? I doubt it.
Thankfully, Iām capable understanding that shipping the fictional characters we were given is easy because of their human-like qualities and relatable dynamics. The CGI helps to suspend our disbelief a ton too, and of course, the great chemistry the actors delivered IRL. They did a fantastic job!
Because letās be honest, if these characters behaved or resembled irl apes 100%, NO ONE WOULD GIVE A FLYING FUCK ABOUT THEM and these movies would not be what they are.
Theyāre shippable because of their dynamic, because of the themes and narrative devices they are using, because of the idea of two opposing worlds coming together through the kindredness of two unlikely heros, because of their relatability in the face of fear, prejudice and the unknown, because of the Shakespearean tragedy of it all-
NOT and I repeat, NOT because they might have s*x š
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And here is the bull himself >:)
+ lore notes
I was like, ah I should make the shadow something interesting, and then I'm like GIVE HIM BULL HORNS???? OKAY SURE !!!!! I'm glad such thoughts can strike at 7 in the morning....thanks brain. But hehehe I'm glad bcs now this matches up super well with the Nando one!
New ship dynamic: who's the bull and who's the matador :)
I think, in this AU, Fernando is generally pretty fond of Seb when he first meets him. Like "ah yes my very own protĆ©gĆ©, very nice, I shall mold him in my image." But then Seb starts veering off that course. Bullfighting is all about being dramatic, but Seb maybe has a bit too much(š¤) flair for the dramatic. This escalation starts while he's still Fernando's assistant but he keeps it generally at bay. But god when he becomes a matador himself, he's just off the rails insane.
Bullfighting, to me, is a sport about reckless endangerment of one's self in the pursuit of drama and performance(its literally described as a tragedy in three acts.) But Fernando thinks Seb endangers himself *too* much, not because he cares or anything, but he's making a mockery of the sport!! Especially when Seb starts doing that bull hand symbol(seen above), Fernando just keeps become more enraged with him, not anything to do with the fact that Seb is threatening his records and threatening his own wellbeing, nah of course not.
Seb's gesture is making a mockery of the sport, he's disrespecting the culture, the very nature of it, blah blah blah. Jenson once asks Fernando, after noticing him seething while watching Seb do his gesture, "Which bull are you really trying to defeat?" One could also describe Fernando and Seb's relationship as a "tragedy with three acts."
Anyways Fernando gets very tied up with this rivalry. Even after suffering a severe injury(I have yet to decide, but y'know mchonda electrocution core), he quickly returns to the sport, loath to let Seb get any more headway. And then Seb gets injured, poor little sweet Seb, and neither of them can handle it. Though I already covered this in my prev lore post š¤ and I think I put it pretty viscerally there so!! I digress.
They're both matadors, but the bull itself is not the only bull Fernando wants to conquer. Conquer as in death? Hm.
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