#but please there was no need to wear that hat in armageddon but i like it
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Owen playing a cowboy being a whole ass genre [and I'm here for it]
#jedediah will forever be my fave#but please there was no need to wear that hat in armageddon but i like it#my fave genre#he looks so good#owen wilson#cowboy#owenwilsonedit#armageddon#shangai noon#the royal tenenbaums#night at the museum#jedediah#eli cash#roy o'bannon#oscar choi#filmgifs#moviegifs#my gif post#my gifs#gif edit#actor#movie actor#actor post#films#natm jedediah#natm#natm fandom#owilson#gif*#dailygifs
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[Re-Angelized Crowley ruling Heaven alongside Supreme Archangel Aziraphale #1 & #2]
You may have encountered this fanfic of mine on Facebook. Time to bring it here! This explores what it would have been if Crowley had accepted to follow Aziraphale in Heaven... Probably Metatron's very own version of Hell... right? 😈
[This is meant to be light and funny - well, at least am I attempting to be. I reserve my deep thoughts for my analysis and I'm just as against our favorite Angel's decision as the next person 😅]
That time the Supreme Archangel Aziraphale had a "big announcement" to make, Day 1
Aziraphale: On this day particularly important for me - I mean, for us all, I have the pleasure to introduce *weird Magishun tone* *already amused by his own pun* or, to re-introduce: Archangel Anthony Crowley!
Crowley: *arrives in all-black attire, already owns the place* Helloooo, suckerssss! Ooookayy, Time to change a thing or two: Beige is out, Black is in! *snaps his fingers because Crowley*
Aziraphale: aka... my husband.
Crowley: *stops in the middle of a twist* Wait, what? Since when?
Aziraphale: *with a both cute and firm smile* Since now. I've decided.
Crowley: *blushes behind his glasses* *shrugs his shoulders**tries to sound cool and detached* M'okay. Works for me.
The crowd: *Too stunned to react*
Aziraphale: A round of applause, please, that would be lovely.
The crowd: *weird applause*
Aziraphale: *innocent yet somewhat demonic smile* Thank you 🤭
When the Supreme Archangel Aziraphale asked the Meeting Room to be repainted in wood shades "because it will feel cozier"
Michael: *about to have a heart attack* *cannot deal with the Jealousy* You cannot be serious?
Uriel: Come on, Michael, it must be a joke... Right?
Metatron: *is waiting for Aziraphale to answer "Yes, of course"*
Crowley: *arrives in style* Have you told them about the yellow lights yet or have I arrived too soon?
Two Angels walk into the New Office That Somehow Looks Like an Old Bookshop to report the news on Armageddon 2.0 - which should have happened two centuries ago - and on how Attempt #451 mysteriously failed.
Crowley: *leans in Aziraphale's seat that looks like an old sofa* And why do they keep talking, exactly?
Aziraphale *holds himself back from rolling his eyes for two centuries* *sympathetic smile* I'm sure you've done your very best to make it work. Thank you.
In the middle of a very important War meeting
Crowley: *sighs* I need a drink, Angel *realizes* *does not care* Yeah, nope, cannot stop calling you that. *To Michael, Uriel, Saraqael, and Metatron* Deal with it, losers. *miracles a glass of Talisker and drinks it as if it were 6 expresso shots in one big mug*
Metatron: *Contemplates the end of his own existence as a valid option for the first time in his Eternity* *So done with their bullshirt since day 1*
Three Angels report on how Attempt #523 mysteriously failed.
Crowley: *straight-up laughing* You heard that, Angel? They didn't do what you asked them to do! *theatrical hand movements* How unusual! How revolutionary! *whispers* Can I hang them by their tiny little fee-T?
Aziraphale: *scandalized look* *high-pitched voice* Of course not!
Crowley: *sighs in childish* Ughhh, I need a drink.
When Archangel Michael makes an appearance
Crowley: Isn't it time we introduce quiet firing, Angel? Also, Micky, I need a towel! *winks at his husband*
That first time Supreme Archangel Aziraphale and Archangel Crowley were about to re-enter the Elevator together.
Aziraphale & Crowley: *dressed formally* *Aziraphale loves top hats and convinced Crowley they should both wear one with reversed colors* *arm in arm*
Metatron: *clears his throat* *severe tone because that is the only tone he knows* Where do you think you two are going?
Aziraphale and Crowley: *startle like children caught stealing After Eights way before eight*
Aziraphale: We... hum... We... *looks at Crowley* Weeee thought it would be... hum... good to... hum... go back to Earth to... observe humans and to... hum... to... do... groceries? *innocent smile*
Metatron: *cannot believe his ears* Groceries?
Crowley: You haven't got the faintest idea how many wars and plagues have started in a grocery store, do ya'? *is handsy around Aziraphale's hip for no reason*
Aziraphale: *giggles*
Crowley: Come on, Angel, time to start World War III by pissing off some Karens at the cashier. T'will take what, Supreme Archangel, to kickstart Second Coming, hum? Two days? *puts his arm around Aziraphale's shoulders* *strong grip*
Aziraphale: *looks at Crowley* Oh, hum, maybe a week. *looks at Metatron* Let's not be pretentious.
Crowley: *glasses slightly down revealing his eyes only to his hubby* You mean like Michael?
Aziraphale: *giggles again before tapping Crowley's hand away from his shoulder in order to concentrate* *pretends to be shocked* Don't say that!
Metatron: *trembling voice* But... You cannot go back to Earth!
Crowley: *has NOT removed his hand from Aziraphale's shoulders* Watch us. *walks like Rihanna because Crowley, straight to the elevator*
Later, after the elevator's doors are closed.
Aziraphale and Crowley: *sigh in unison*
Aziraphale: I thought he would erase our names in the Book of Life for a second.
Crowley: Yeahhh, well... The night is still young, Angel. But, for now, time to recharge at the Ritz.
Aziraphale: Remember your promise, right?
Crowley: *pretends to not remember* Hum? Wot?
Aziraphale: You promised you wouldn't drink too much alcohol so that we can go to the Opera after. I need us to see Madam Butterfly sober!
Crowley: And I still strongly disagree with that statement. If I find Laudanum, I'll take a hundred bottles: one for tonight, the other 99 to bear the sight of Killjoy in Chief* for yet another day.
[Oh, I think we all know who Killjoy in Chief is. Obviosleh.]
Crowley: If we ever go back Up.
Aziraphale: *scandalized in type A personality* Of course, we will come back! We have responsibilities!
Crowley: Says the Supreme Archangel *of course he always mentions his hubby's new title ironically* who ASKED for a week on Earth.
Aziraphale: Yes, well... There is no such thing as the concept of vacation in Heaven at the moment, but I will certainly introduce it in a century or two. This is important!
Crowley: Sure.
Aziraphale: *talks in Life Mission* It helps stay productive. And happy!
Crowley: Riiight.
Aziraphale: You know it's true! Stop mocking me!
Crowley: I'm not, I... *freezes*
Aziraphale: What is it? Are you okay? *handsy around Crowley's shoulder*
Crowley: My Bentley is going to be so pissed at me. My baby must be so depressed... *puppy-snake-like eyes*
Aziraphale: I know where this is going... And the answer is no, Crowley. *tries to muster some authority in his tone* *fails*
Crowley: Rahhhh! Come on, Angel! You plan on taking your diaries, your favorite books, and snacks! All I want is a dozen Talisker barrels, my plants, and my car back!
Aziraphale: These things will take too much space, Crowley! What will Metatron say?
Crowley: Tss. Says the Supreme Archangel who dreams of reproducing to perfection his very Earthy Bookshop in Heaven. And has started to do exactly that! You're no fun and you're a hypocrite! An Angel, for short. And a basic* one at that.
[Insert The Good Place Michael who says "It's a human insult. You're devastated right now" gif here - Hey, we're on Tumblr, actually, I can!]
Aziraphale: *crosses his arms like a 5 yo while being 6000+* You too are an Angel, Crowley. You tend to forget about that.
Crowley: I'm not an Angel-Angel, Angel. Do you know why? Because I don't have a whole range of brooms stuck inside my bottom.
Aziraphale: *hurt* *also annoyed* *but mostly hurt* And here I was, thinking we would just spend an amazing week together. *trembling voice* You're the no-fun one, Crowley. *almost about to cry* *avoids eye contact*
Crowley: *notices* *pretends not to care* *holds himself back from thinking how cute Aziraphale's pouty face is* *fails miserably* *growls in defeat* How unfair is that?!
Aziraphale: *pretends not to hear for a second* *turns back to him* *keeps his pouty face steady* What? What is unfair?
Crowley: Nevermind, Angel. *sigh* Alright... I will limit my alcohol consumption to four, maybe five glasses.
Aziraphale: *cutest smile emerges* Thank you 🥰 *happy as in a Mariah Carey Christmas clip* *giggles*
Crowley: *blushes behind his glasses* *takes Aziraphales' arm back*
*Pretty long silence*
Crowley: Seriously, though, Sexy is gonna be so pissed at me.
Aziraphale: *high-pitched voice* OH MY LORD, for Heaven's sake, Crowley, the answer is no! Not another word!
Crowley: She might not want to take us to places, you don't understand how serious that is, Angel! What if she never forgives me? What if... *parent's biggest fear* What if she has been car-napped? Or worse? Ran away on her own? She could be anywhere by now!
Aziraphale: *tries to be reassuring* Well, if she isn't here when we arrive, we can miracle her back, it will be fine, Cro-
Crowley: And hurt her even more, treating her like... like... well, a car? I cannot talk to you when you are delusional like that! You're really pissing me off, *makes childish faces* SuPrEmE ArChAnGeL. *crosses his arms* *looks away*
*New silence*
Aziraphale: What if I allow you to drink as much as you like?
Crowley: *mumbles* Not enough.
Aziraphale: Come on, I need you to meet me halfway!
Crowley: *gritted teeth* Not. Enough.
Aziraphale: *sighs in angry mom* What do you want?!
Crowley: I told you what I wanted. You just don't listen.
Aziraphale: We cannot bring the Bentley to Heaven, Crowley! This is not happening!
Crowley: Then I'm not coming back either. Simple. *shrugs in blackmail*
Aziraphale: *shocked*
Crowley: For the record: when humans get married, Angel, they usually do not reject their spouses' child. You... You're behaving like a nasty mother-in-law right now and I'm not having it.
Aziraphale: Did you just Lady Tremaine-labelled me? For real?!
Crowley: Yep. You're that mean. I cannot believe how quickly your new job had gone to that top hat-ed head of yours.
Aziraphale: ...
Crowley: How career changes people, isn't it just baffling.
Aziraphale & Crowley: *cross their arms and look away at the same time*
*ANOTHER silence*
Aziraphale: *defeated sigh* *literally cannot be mad at his hubby for more than 3 minutes* One Talisker barrel, only the plants that stayed in the Bentley and... the Bentley. IF, and ONLY IF she consents to be... huh... reduced in size a little.
Crowley: *yells in bad faith* Here, have some fatphobia, now! I've seen it all! *points a reproachful finger at his spouse* You're a disappointment, Angel.
Aziraphale: *starting to lose patience* Crowley...
Crowley: Two barrels.
Aziraphale: Do not push your luck, I swear...
Crowley: Have you not noticed I'm winning the argument by now, SuPrEmE aRcHaNgEl?
Aziraphale: This is. Not. About. Winning, Crowley! And it is so unfair you keep our Soirée hostage until you get what you want!
Crowley: I'm a demon, Angel. Demons tend to do that.
Aziraphale: Technically, you aren't anymore!
Crowley: We both know you never technically sent the form to make my re-Angelisation official, so I am technically AND in truth: *marks a pause* Still. A demon.
Aziraphale: Exactly! A nasty mother-in-law would never do such a thing!
Crowley: So?
Aziraphale: A raging bureaucrat either!
Crowley: So?
Aziraphale: And certainly NOT a basic Angel!
Crowley: *annoyed* SO?
Aziraphale: I need you to take that back! That was unfair and BEYOND mean, Crowley! *shaking lips*
Crowley: *growls* *rolls his eyes* FINE. *removes his glasses* Sorry, Angel. It was the worried parent speaking.
Aziraphale: *little smirk Crowley has never seen before* *so ready for his petty revenge* Not. Enough.
Crowley: *finds it super hot* *likes being imitated* *cannot concentrate anymore* You... hum... Okay, what do you want? *is wondering how he went from winning the argument to being a fair loser in a matter of a single no-so-angelic smirk*
Aziraphale: *ready to push his luck* How about... a little dance?
Crowley: Out of the question.
Aziraphale: Crowley...
Crowley: NO.
Aziraphale: Crowley...
Crowley: *feels his determination melt like ice at the heart of Hell* *gritted teeth* Fi-
Elevator: Earth. *neutral ding* *doors opens*
Aziraphale: *takes Crowley's hand in his* *looks at him with soft eyes*
Crowley: *cannot believe a SuPrEMe ArChAnGeL could ever make him swoon**longest sigh* Ughhhh. Let's get this over with.
Aziraphale: *recoils to enjoy the view better*
Crowley:
You were right,
You were right,
I was wrong,
You were righ-T. *sighs* Satisfactory enough, SuPrEmE aRcHaNgEl?
Aziraphale: Thank you, Cinderella. *leaves first in victory*
Crowley: *wants to murder and kiss him at the same time*
#Good Omens#Aziracrow#Ineffable Husbands#Good Omens fanfic#Aziraphale#Crowley#Supreme Archangel Aziraphale#Archangel Anthony J Crowley#Crowley and Aziraphale rule Heaven together#Metatron wants to quit#Of course Heaven looks like an Old Bookshop now#Oh and they are married#Archangel Michael is jealous#The Bentley#Shamelessly using The Good Place references#Also Mulan's#Also Doctor Who's#Using way too much hashtags#Ya BASIC#Crowley has been reangelized or has he?#Of course Heaven has a terrible administrative system
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DigiWeek 2021
Day 1 - Beginning
The Story
part 2 part 3 part 4
“Bye Miko, bye Taki!” someone shouted just as our bus pulled up in front of us. We both turned to see Matsuda waving before he climbed into his mother’s car. We waved back, then got onto the bus. After the driver had greeted us we walked to our usual spot at the back of the bus.
“Phew”, what a day!”, Taki exclaimed, flopping down beside me. She shook back her long black hair and leaned her head on my shoulders.
I nodded. “You’re saying something.” I slid deeper down into the seat, checking my reflection in the mirror, ruffling my short unruly black hair dyed blonde a bit more before closing my eyes.
Taki and I had been friends since kindergarten and we were now in eleventh grade together. And today had been truly hell. One test had chased after the other and in P.E. we had to run laps all period long. Ugh. When it came to ball sports I was always aboard – and on top of my class – but athletics were my armageddon. I was just glad it was over now.
As the neighbourhood passed by the window and we didn’t have to get off for the next ten stops there was plenty of time for a nap. I took a deep breath, settled my head on Taki’s, and already started daydreaming.
____
While Miko and Taki were sleeping peacefully side by side, the world around them slowly transformed. Passengers vanished, lampposts became trees, the road turned into a grassy pathway, and the once municipal bus changed into a rural area trolley running on an invisible contact wire.
____
“Ssh, Miko, wake up. Wake up!”
I was rudely shaken awake by Taki. As the sunlight filtered through my half-closed eyelids, I jolted, immediately wide awake. “What is it? Have we missed our spot?”
“No.” Taki’s voice was suddenly all but a whisper. “I think it’s worse.”
I looked around but I had a hard time processing what I saw. We sat in an old-fashioned trolley that was empty except for us. It stood on a lush meadow full of colourful nodding flowers. Something moved between them and when I squinted I saw two, well, creatures approaching. I didn’t have a better word for it now. As they came closer I could distinguish one of them as some sort of green, upright standing turtle wearing a sturdy hat – and was that a ball like that of a computer mouse on his belly? The other creature beside him was dragon-like, but with yellow fur instead of scales, and wore intricately decorated black armour.
After we had gotten outside, I protectively stood before before my friend, not actually hoping that I could defeat the creatures but it was the gesture that counted. Taki thankfully pressed against me, taking hold of my jacket.
“Finally you’ve come!”, the turtle squealed, apparently with joy, and opened its arms as if to embrace us.
“Yes, we waited so long”, the dragon echoed the sentiment with a deep voice. It stood upright now and held its claws up in the universally understood gesture of peace.
Yet I wasn’t ready to give up my protective stance. “Who are you?”, I demanded to know in my most commanding voice – which actually was quite impressive. I was six feet tall and had to shop in the men’s section because female clothing didn’t fit my broad shoulders.
My demeanour had the desired effect: The creatures shrank back. In a defensive voice the dragon said: “We do not wish to harm you! We are Kamemon - “, he indicated the turtle, “and Ryudamon. You are here in the Digital World.”
“Uh…”, was all I managed to say. Faintly, a bell rang in my head at the words “Digital World”. Something about a humongous bird and some sort of dinosaur wreaking havoc in Tokyo about a decade ago. Shortly after, my family moved out of the city to Atami. I had been maybe four or five at that time.
“We need your help”, the turtle, I mean, Kamemon chimed in, “a gruesome force is about to take over this part of the Digital World.”
“A gruesome force?”, Taki finally dared to partake in the conversation.
“Yeah. I don’t know what that is but it sounds evil, right? Ryudamon says that all the time.” Kamemon laughed and hit Ryudamon amicably on the shoulder.
It rolled its eyes before it said “Please check your pockets.”
I frowned but both Digimon – I gathered that’s what their species was called – nodded encouragingly. So I patted my jacket and pants until I found a circular device with a screen and several buttons. Mine was dazzling golden like the sun while Taki’s was a bright lunar silver. A picture of Kamemon flashed on the display of mine. It waved and the image waved, too.
“So you always know where I am when we get separated. Because we’re partners now.” While Taki and I had been checking the devices the Digimon had dared to come closer. Kamemon extended a hand. Ryudamon did the same in front of Taki.
“I am honoured to fight at your side from now on”, it announced gravely.
Taki and I exchanged a look until she nodded. “Partners we are then”, she said.
Kamemon and Ryudamon
When and how did you first discover Digimon?
Judging from the date it aired on German TV (March 7 1999) - and assuming I started watching it right then - I was barely 3 1/2 years old. I don’t know if that makes any sense or if my parents even allowed that so I can’t vouch for this to be the truth. Though if I only watched a re-run it couldn’t have been a lot later, maybe a year. Because I started collecting the Digimon comic magazines that the German publishing house Dino released from issue 13 (Angemon vs. Devimon) onwards, and issue 15 was released on May 23 2001 (and their story lines were much behind the storylines from the episodes on TV - Issue 14 introduced the 02 kids). That means I was 5 1/2 years old - which, thinking about it, does make a lot more sense than 3 1/2 to get invested in animes and comics.
To make a long story short, it probably was the summer of 2000 and I was about 4 years old.
#digiweek2021#beginning#digimon adventure#digimon#my stories#my oc#also: when this gets posted i'm about to have my wisdom teeth removed so wish me luck with that!
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Star Trek Episode 1.23: A Taste of Armageddon
AKA: Good God Y’all, What Is It Good For?
Our episode begins with the Enterprise on its way to conduct some diplomacy. Kirk elaborates for us:
“Captain’s Log, Stardate 3192.1. The Enterprise is en route to star cluster NGC321. Objective—to open diplomatic relations with the civilizations known to be there. We have sent a message to Eminiar 7, principal planet of the star cluster, informing them of our friendly intentions. We are awaiting an answer.”
Kirk is filling in the time until they get that answer by being a nuisance on the bridge, first hovering over Spock’s shoulder and then going to bother Uhura about whether they’ve received a reply yet. She patiently tells him that yes, the hailing frequencies are open and no, they haven’t gotten a reply yet. Before Kirk can try asking, “Okay, how about now? How about…now?” the lift doors open and a man in a suit with a collar you could dunk a basketball through and a face like people have tried to steps onto the bridge.
[ID: A screenshot of Fox, a middle-age white man with short curled blond hair, blue eyes with heavy bags under them, and a bitter expression. He’s wearing a grayish-brown top with a round collar wider than his entire head.]
He also wants to know if they’ve gotten a reply yet. Kirk tells him no, they’re still waiting for Eminiar 7 to call back. In fact, it’s only since today that they’ve even been sure the Eminians have gotten their signal at all. But just then, Uhura announces that they’ve finally gotten something back from Eminiar, and it’s “Code 710,” repeating over and over. “Is that supposed to mean something?” the ambassador says loudly. Kirk explains to him that Code 710 means that under no circumstances are they supposed to approach the planet—no circumstances whatsoever (something you’d think an ambassador would know). You notice he didn’t say “under no circumstances except the circumstance that you, specifically, think we should do it anyway” but apparently that’s what the ambassador heard, because he immediately tells Kirk, “You will disregard that signal, captain.”
“Mr. Fox, it is their planet,” Kirk points out, but Fox is not impressed by this. “In the past twenty years, thousands of lives have been lost in this quadrant,” he snaps. “Lives that could have been saved if the Federation had a treaty for here. We need to have that port, and I’m here to get it.” Kirk points out that disregarding Code 710 could result in an interplanetary war, but Fox says he’s prepared to take that risk. Oh, you’re prepared to take that risk. I’m sure that will make everyone else who winds up involved in an interplanetary war feel better about it.
Further protests for caution prove equally useless; Fox reminds Kirk that his mission gives him the power of command, and he’s going to exercise it. Kirk’s job is to get them into orbit, and leave the rest to Fox. Then he stalks back off the bridge, leaving Kirk to sit gloomily in his chair for a moment before putting the ship on yellow alert, raising the shields, and having the phaser crews stand by. “We’re going in, gentlemen,” he says. “Peacefully, I hope, but peacefully or not...we’re going in.”
After the titles, we see the Enterprise in orbit around a nice Earth-y looking planet while Kirk gives us a quick update: they’ve made it to Eminiar 7 and are preparing to beam down. “My orders are clear—we must establish diplomatic relations at all cost.” I see, going for the “be friends with us OR ELSE” approach here.
Kirk is on the bridge talking to Spock, getting the lowdown on the Eminians. Apparently their civilization is “advanced,” by whatever metric we’re judging that, and they’ve had spaceflight capability for centuries but have never left their own solar system. First contact was made fifty years ago, at which point Eminiar 7 was at war with its nearest neighbor, and the ship that made that contact, the U.S.S. Valiant, never returned. Spock says it’s “Listed as missing in space.” Right, sure. Same way the Lusitania is listed as “missing in the Atlantic Ocean” I bet.
At this point Fox comes onto the bridge and shoves his way into the conversation, demanding to know, “Kirk, what’s this about you going down alone?” Kirk says, nonsense, he’s not going down alone—he’s taking some redshirts with him and everything. Of course, what Fox really means is, what’s this about Kirk going down there without Fox. Kirk says that whatever Fox’s prerogative as ambassador might be, he’s not going to risk beaming Fox down until he knows “what kind of a reception [Fox is] going to receive.” Which makes sense. You don’t want to just beam your ambassador down into a completely unsecured situation, who knows what might be going on down there. Of course, you also wouldn’t want to beam the captain of the ship down into a completely unsecured situation but, well, you can’t have everything.
“Your safety is my responsibility. Those are my orders, sir,” Kirk tells Fox. Then, before Fox can come up with a rebuttal to this, Kirk leaves him standing there and walks off to talk to Spock. Spock reports that the transporter is ready, and they’ve selected a beam-down spot that they’re guessing from the traffic is near some kind of official establishment. He also reports that they haven’t noticed any signs of hostility from the Eminians, or in fact any sign of the Eminians acknowledging their presence at all—which is odd, because they were scanned when they arrived, so the Eminians obviously know the Enterprise is there. So they’re leaving the Enterprise’s shields down for the moment, but Spock assures Kirk that all defensive details are on general alert, just in case.
Kirk wants the landing party to take some ‘phaser number ones’ when they go down, but keep them inconspicuous. Then he tells Scotty, “The ship is yours. Take care of her until I come back.” With that, Kirk, Spock, and three waiting redshirts depart into the lift, while Fox glowers after them.
We then see an establishing shot of a pleasant enough looking city down on the planet...
[ID: A screenshot of the Eminian city, consisting of several tall white buildings with black and gold detailing and a wide expanse of mowed grass in the foreground. A couple of monorails are visible among the building, and a small group of people can just barely be seen standing on some paths among the grass.]
...before cutting to an interior corridor, where a woman is looking at a device as she walks, flanked by a couple of guards in very silly hats. After consulting her device, the woman says, “They will materialize there.” (How she knows this is never explained.) “Remember your instructions. They are to be treated correctly, nothing more.”
[ID: Three people walking down a corridor composed of several angular archways that are lit in bright green, pink and purple. In the center is a white woman with blonde curly hair, wearing a kind of wrap tied draped diagonally across her chest, colored in blocks of teal, black, white and blue, with black tights and flats underneath it. She is looking down at a gold device in her hands. On either side of her are two men dressed in black one-piece uniforms that each have a colored stripe going diagonally across the torso and down one leg, with a large silver clasp on the shoulder; one guard has a red stripe and one has a purple stripe. They are both wearing a hat of a corresponding color which is tall and somewhat resembles a paper bag standing on its end.]
ah yes, our proud and noble city guards, the Sack Hats
Sure enough, the landing party materializes in a nearby courtyard, next to a nice bit of abstract art. As the woman and her escort walk over to meet them, we get a swell of romantic music and a shot of the woman’s face sparkling in soft focus, for no other reason that I can tell except that she’s a woman. Seriously, she’s not even a love interest in this episode.
Kirk introduces himself and says he’s representing the United Federation of Planets, which is incidentally the first time we’ve actually heard the Federation referred to by its full name. “I know,” the woman says. “I’m Mea 3. I congratulate you on your instrumentation. You’ve come directly to the Division of Control. If you’ll follow me, please?” Oh boy, the Division of Control. That doesn’t sound ominous at all.
Mea 3 leads them back into the building, but as they start to head down the corridor, her professional decorum breaks for a moment. She starts to say, “Captain, I wish...” When Kirk prompts her to go on, she just says, “You were warned not to come here.”
Kirk says he had to come anyway, because orders, what you gonna do, then asks why they were warned off anyway. Mea says it was for their own safety, which baffles Kirk, because he sees no danger here. I mean, how can there be danger if you can’t see any danger? Doesn’t make sense. But Mea 3 says the danger exists anyway. “Nevertheless, you are here. It would be morally incorrect to do less than extend our hospitality. Anan 7 and members of the High Council await you.”
She picks up the pace again, leading the party down another corridor ending with a big door watched over by a couple more guards. Mea takes the group inside, where they are awaited by five men sitting at a half-circle table, all of them dressed in the same black-and-color-stripe uniform as the guards, but without the silly hats. The man in the middle is also wearing a kind of beige shawl over the top of his uniform to set him apart from the rest. Ah yes, beige. The color of authority.
Kirk introduces himself, Spock, and the redshirts: Galway (hello again!), Osborne, and Yeoman Tamura. (Why do you keep bringing Yeomen on these kinds of missions.) The man in the beige shawl stands up and introduces himself as Anan 7. He welcomes them to Eminiar 7 and asks what he can do for them. Kirk says his mission is to establish diplomatic relations between their people, and Anan 7 immediately says, “That is impossible.” Ohhhhh boy, this is gonna be a long visit.
“Would you mind telling me why?” Kirk asks, very politely but with a look in his eyes that says clearly that he is already SO tired.
“Because of the war,” Anan replies. When Kirk is surprised that they’re still at war after fifty years, Anan tells him that in fact, they’ve been at war for over five hundred years. This catches Kirk off guard because, as he says, they conceal it very well. He then calls Spock up to the front of the class to give a quick presentation on the subject. Spock says they’ve scanned the planet and found it, “Highly advanced, prosperous in a material sense, comfortable for your people, and peaceful in the extreme.” So, very nice planet, 4.5/5 stars, would stay again, so how can there be a war going on when there’s no evidence whatsoever of it?
Nonetheless, Anan tells them that they see 1-3 million civilians dead every year from direct enemy attack. That’s why, he says, the Enterprise was told to stay away: as long as it’s orbiting the planet, it’s in serious danger. Well gee, thanks. The Eminians sure do lean a whole lot on that “you were WARNED to STAY AWAY” thing considering the incredibly tepid effort they made with the actual warning. Sure, they sent out a code, but as we’ll learn a bit later, they’re fully capable of contacting the ship well enough to have a full conversation, and the Enterprise was trying to establish such a conversation for quite some time. There’s no reason we’re told that the Eminians couldn’t have explained specifically why the Enterprise should stay away, or established communications with them at a safe distance—they just didn’t bother.
Spock asks who these invisible people are that they’re at war with anyway, and Anan explains that they’re at war with Vendikar, the third planet in this system—which is something Spock should know, considering he earlier described the Eminians as being “at war with their nearest neighbor” fifty years ago, and all indications are that this is the same war, but never mind that. Anan says Vendikar (I don’t know why Eminiar 7 has a number but Vendikar is just Vendikar) was originally colonized by Eminiar 7 in the first place, but apparently there was some kind of falling-out, because Vendikar is now “a ruthless enemy—highly advanced technologically.”
At that moment an alarm starts buzzing, and one of the walls of the room slides open, revealing an adjoining room filled with computer banks and screens on the wall. “Please excuse me,” Anan says. “Vendikar is attacking.”
He asks Mea to look after their guests and hurries off into the computer room, leaving the landing party to watch in confusion. Kirk asks Mea if they’re not going to take shelter, but Mea just gives him an odd look and says that there is no shelter. She doesn’t seem especially perturbed by any of this, and when Spock asks her if the attacks are frequent, she calmly says, “Oh, yes. And we will retaliate immediately.”
One of the screens in the computer room, which is showing a large map, suddenly lights up. Mea looks stricken and explains that it’s showing a hit—right here in the city. Since there’s a conspicuous lack of any explosion noises, the landing party is naturally even more confused by this. When Kirk asks Mea what weapons are being used, she says it’s fusion bombs, being materialized over the targets. Not the sort of thing it’s easy to miss, but there’s no sign at all of anything happening. Kirk even calls up Scotty and asks him if the scanners have noticed anything going on, but Scotty says it’s all quiet down there.
While Kirk and Spock are trying to figure out what’s going on, another illuminated spot appears on the screen in the computer room. One of the councilmen points it out to Anan, who grimly muses that “They were warned.” Yeah, keep telling yourself that. The councilman says that this is “Just as it happened fifty years ago.” Considering that fifty years ago was when the Valiant came here and was never seen again, this exchange doesn’t seem to bode well for our heroes—and neither does Anan’s subsequent order for the councilman to alert a security detachment because “they may be needed.”
As the councilman heads off, Anan comes out of the computer room to talk to Kirk. “It was a vicious attack,” he says. “Extremely destructive. Fortunately, our defenses are firming, but our casualties were high, very high.” Kirk is so confused by this that he wonders out loud if it’s all some kind of game, but Anan takes immediate offense, telling him that half a million people dead is no game. Then he tells the other councilmen to “activate the attack units” for an immediate counter-attack.
With this, Spock has finally got this whole thing figured out: “Computers, captain. They fight their war with computers totally.” Kirk protests that computers don’t kill that many people, which is obviously wrong. There are many exciting ways for computers to kill people. Those ones in the background right now could probably take out several just by falling over on them.
Of course they’re fighting with computers, Anan says. The deaths have been registered and the dead now have twenty-four hours to report. Report to what? Why, the disintegration machines, of course.
“You must understand, captain,” Anan explains in the face of Kirk’s increasingly confused and horrified expression. “We have been at war for five hundred years. Under ordinary conditions, no civilization could withstand that, but we have reached a solution.” Spock asks if that means the attack by Vendikar was theoretical, but Anan says that no, it was very real—Anan’s own wife was killed in the last one. It just wasn’t an attack accomplished by any real, tangible weapons. Their computers, and Vendikar’s, calculate where such weapons would strike, and what the damage would be, and the people who became casualties in the simulation must then become such in real life, and report to the disintegration chambers to be killed. “Our civilization lives. The people die. But our culture goes on.”
When Kirk expresses stunned disbelief that the people of Eminiar will just walk into a disintegration chamber when told to, Anan simply replies, “We have a high consciousness of duty, captain.” Right, I bet they do. Enough propaganda will do that for you.
Spock admits that all this does have “a certain scientific logic” to it. Anan takes this to be approval, but Spock coldly corrects him.
[ID: 1. A screenshot of Spock saying, “I do not approve. I understand.” 2. A screenshot of Anan, a middle-aged white man with short graying brown hair, a short brown goatee, and brown eyes, looking off to the side and saying, “Good.”]
no NOT good! weren’t you listening???
Anan then reminds them, once again, that they were warned not to come here and did so anyway, and now “I’m sorry, but it’s happened.” “What’s happened?” Kirk asks, in the voice of a man rapidly approaching his breaking point. Anan grimly explains that once the Enterprise was in orbit around Eminiar, it became a target in the war, and in the attack just now it was marked as being destroyed in a “tri-cobalt satellite explosion” whatever that is. By the rules of Eminian/Vendikaran warfare, everyone aboard the Enterprise is now dead and has twenty-four hours to report to the disintegration chambers—and Kirk and co. will be held in custody to ensure their cooperation.
Of course, the Enterprise may have been warned against approaching the planet, but they weren’t told why they shouldn’t, and certainly not told anything about the simulated war or about the incoming attack, giving them no opportunity to take evasive action or defensive measures as they ordinarily would do when engaged in battle. Indeed, we’ll later see that the Eminian weapons aren’t capable of doing more than lightly shaking the Enterprise when her shields are up—and it seems unlikely the Vendikaran weapons could do much more, since they seem to be pretty evenly matched. The Eminian style of war might be cleaner, by some definition, but it removes all hope of second chances. No taking of bullets for someone else, no deaths averted due to swift action by a skilled commander on the scene or by luck or by someone getting medical attention fast enough. You not only don’t have a say in whether you’re involved in this war if you’re born onto the planet or just happen to be in the nearby vicinity, but no action on your part can ever do anything to avert the preordained death of you or your loved ones. No wonder everyone on this planet is so defeatist about the war. They’ve spent their last five hundred years as a culture having the idea hammered into them that nothing they do individually could do anything to change it.
I’m sure you can just about imagine Kirk’s reaction upon being told that his entire crew is supposed to report for execution, but as soon as he and the security men start reaching for their phasers, they find themselves surrounded by Sack Hats with their own weapons drawn. A couple of them grab Kirk by the shoulders, keeping him from escaping but not from all but vibrating with palpable fury.
“If possible we shall spare your ship, captain,” Anan tells him, apparently trying to be reassuring. “But its passengers and crew...are already dead.”
The comment about sparing the ship was probably meant as nothing more than a bit of filler dialogue, but if so inclined I think you can take it as quite indicative of Anan’s worldview. Kirk dearly loves the Enterprise, sure, but the idea that he would be concerned with the ship itself remaining intact, or would find any degree of solace in that idea, in this moment when the lives of literally everybody aboard are now at risk, is pretty absurd. We know Kirk better than that. It’s not even practically useful to him, since even if he and the landing party survive and could get back on the ship, what would they do then? Try to fly back to Federation space with five people manning a ship meant to have a crew of four hundred twenty? That would just be silly.
But that Anan would say such a thing as he breaks news so incredibly bad perhaps shows that it’s the kind of thing that, were their positions reversed, he would find comforting to hear. It echoes what he said just a few moments ago: “The people die. But our culture goes on.” Anan’s culture evidently places a high enough value on inanimate things and concepts that they consider the loss of individual lives tragic, but worth it to preserve those things. The question is, was their culture being like that what led to them conducting war in this way? Or did five hundred years of living through this endless war and being forced to justify it to themselves change their outlook over time?
After the break, Kirk gives us a quick recap via captain’s log:
“Captain’s Log, delayed: The Enterprise, in orbit about Eminiar VII, has been declared a casualty of an incredible war fought by computers. I and my landing party, though apparently not included as casualties aboard the Enterprise, are confined on the planet’s surface awaiting...what?”
We then see that the landing party are indeed confined, although as far as holding cells go you could do a lot worse; the room they’re in has some nice chairs, a rug, even a coffee table with some mugs on it. Swanky. Kirk’s obviously not taking much consolation in this, though, judging by the way he seems to be trying to wear a furrow in the floor with his angry pacing.
The door opens and Mea 3 enters, accompanied by a Sack Hat. She says she’s been sent to ask if they require anything.
[ID: Kirk, Spock, two male redshirts, and a young Asian woman in a red uniform dress, assembled in a small stone-floored and walled room with two chairs, a couch, a coffee table, a rug, and several pieces of assorted abstract art. Kirk is standing near the door and talking to Mea 3, saying, “yeah we could use some creamer for the coffee if you don’t mind OF COURSE WE REQUIRE SOMETHING”.]
Kirk positively snarls that he requires a great deal, starting with speaking to Anan, but Mea says he’s busy coordinating casualty lists. “He’ll have more casualty lists than he knows what to do with if he doesn’t get in here and talk to me!” Kirk fires back.
Mea, now starting get a bit ruffled, tries to say something about their duty, but Kirk isn’t having it, and tells her that it is not her duty to be cheerfully disintegrated. Actually, Mea says, that is very much her duty now: she’s been declared a casualty and is required to report for disintegration by noon tomorrow. Which is a bit odd, because Mea was in the same room and standing right next to the landing party while the attack was underway, and none of them were declared casualties. Either there’s been another attack in the meantime, or there’s some kind of lottery system in place to determine who dies, out of everyone in a specific area that was designated ‘hit’.
Kirk looks pretty thrown by this for a moment and asks if that’s really all this is to Mea, to dutifully report in and die. Mea informs him that no, she values her life as much as he does his, but she doesn’t have a choice; if people on Eminiar started refusing to report to their deaths, the terms of the agreement with Vendikar would break down and they would have to start using real weapons again. Eminiar would have to retaliate in kind. “More than people would die then. A whole civilization would be destroyed. Surely you can see that ours is the better way.”
“No,” Kirk says. “I don’t see that at all.”
But better or not, as Mea then reminds him, it’s been their way for five hundred years, and they’re clearly pretty stuck in it. At any rate, she’s not interested in arguing about it any more, and turns to leave, then stops to ask Kirk once again if the party needs anything. Kirk just repeats his demand to see Anan, so Mea sighs and leaves them in there to stare gloomily at each other.
Back up on the Enterprise, McCoy is engaged in his favorite pastime: standing on the bridge and grousing. Specifically, while they still don’t have any idea what’s actually going on down there, he’s concerned that they haven’t heard anything from the landing party by now. Scotty agrees that they should have heard back by now, but the fact is they haven’t, and they have no way of knowing why because they can’t raise the group. McCoy protests that dammit Jim Scotty, they can’t just SIT HERE! So Scotty asks what McCoy would have him do, then.
[ID: 1. A screenshot of McCoy looking taken aback. 2. A screenshot of McCoy looking off to the side and saying, “uh...tbh I didn’t think I’d get this far.”]
McCoy is forced to admit—well, more accurately, ‘come close to skirting around suggesting at admitting’--that he does not, in fact, know what they should do. “Would you have me open fire?” Scotty demands. “Of course not!” McCoy immediately replies, but he’s still not happy.
But that’s what happens when you put McCoy and Scotty together for too long. They make a dangerous combination. I always feel like they’re about thirty seconds away from either getting into a raging fist fight or egging each other on into committing arson, it’s just a toss-up as to which.
Luckily, before either of those two things can happen, Uhura reports that there’s a message coming in from the captain, and all disagreements are hastily thrown aside to pick it up. “Good news, Mr. Scott,” Kirk’s voice says. “The Eminians have agreed to the establishment of full diplomatic relations.”
[ID: A shot on the bridge, with Scotty sitting in the command chair, leaning forward, while McCoy stand next to him with his hand on the buttons on the chair’s arm.]
Bones get your hand off the chair console you’re gonna accidentally go to red alert.
Well, that sounds great! So no worries, then? Everything fine? Indeed, everything is so fine that, Kirk goes on, the Eminians have extended an invitation for all personnel to visit the planet for shore leave, and he’s been personally assured that they’ll have a wonderful time.
At this point some dubious looks start getting traded across the bridge. Starfleet might have some remarkably lax standards for what constitutes an appropriate shore leave location, but the middle of an active war zone is pushing it even for them. Plus, there’s that thorny little bit about sending down all personnel, something not typically done due to the minor little issue of the ship needing some people on it to prevent it from crashing into the planet. But Kirk assures Scotty that yes, he really did mean all personnel. Everyone. Send ‘em all. It’s fine—they’ll just beam up some trained Eminians to assume support positions aboard the ship. No worries!
As Kirk’s voice is heard saying this, we briefly switch perspectives to see that Anan is holding Kirk’s communicator up in front of a speaker system of some kind. “Those are my orders, Mr. Scott,” he says sternly in Kirk’s voice.
Scotty, of course, is no fool, and also would saw his own arm off before trusting the Enterprise solely to the care of a handful of absolute strangers, so he assures ‘Kirk’ that yes sirree captain, we’ll get those shore leave parties going right away, and hangs up. Then he gives McCoy a look and says, “Well, now, what do you think of that?” McCoy, rather surprisingly, doesn’t have a fiery opinion on hand about the situation, though he’s clearly got a sense that something’s up. Scotty is rather more certain, and marches over to the computer to have it run Kirk’s message through a voice analyzer. Apparently voice analyzer technology has improved in the Federation since that whole Kodos business, because rather than having to compare a couple print-outs of sound waves the computer just quickly runs a scan and then immediately tells him that nope, not Kirk’s voice, just a close copy. Most likely it’s from, as Scotty guesses, a “voice duplicator.” I think the implication is that Anan was using the machine we saw him holding the communicator up to to imitate Kirk’s voice, but it really could have been presented more clearly.
But never mind the mechanics of how it was done. The point is, as Scotty says, “They’ve got them, doctor. And now they’re trying to get us.”
Back in the holding room where the landing party has gotten Got, Kirk is asking Spock, “Are you sure you can do it?” Spock admits he’s not sure if this is going to work or not, but as he tells Kirk, “Limited telepathic abilities are inherent in Vulcanians.” He then goes over to the door, which we see has a Sack Hat standing guard on the other side of it. There follows a somewhat strange scene in which Spock puts his hands on the door and frowns at it, causing the guard to start looking increasingly uncomfortable and twitchy until finally he moves to open the door. So yes, I guess Spock can telepathically influence people to, at the very least, open doors, even without any direct contact.
Everyone quickly hides up against the walls, and as soon as the guard is within the room, Kirk chops the gun out of his hand and knocks him out, leaving the redshirts to drag him away. Yeoman Tamura asks what they’re going to do now, and Kirk says the immediate plan is to get back their communicators so they can contact the Enterprise. But to do that, they’re also probably going to need to secure some weapons. Kirk tells Spock that they’ll try to go easy, but they may wind up needing to kill, to which Spock nods glumly but says he understands.
The group sneaks out of the room, narrowly avoiding being seen by another passing guard, before heading off down an intersecting corridor. We then see a light set in a ceiling and flashing orange. But the landing party hasn’t been caught yet—this is no alarm but, in fact, an indicator light of some sort, installed above a booth set into a wall with a console set up outside. One Sack Hat is manning the console while another is talking to a woman in a purple toga, or at least something toga-adjacent. The party comes around the corner just in time to see the door to the booth open and the woman step inside it. Then the door closes again, the Sack Hat operates some controls, the light flashes, and the door opens again—now with no sign of the woman. Well, that doesn’t bode well.
As the landing party watches in grim horror, the other Sack Hat proceeds to get into the booth himself. “An entrance, captain, but no exit,” Spock comments. “They get in, but they do not come out.”
Well, given what we already know about the Eminians, it’s not hard to work out what we’re looking at here: this is one of the aforementioned disintegration machines, processing some of the day’s casualties. Given the cultural significance attached to these booths, I would kind of have expected them to be off in their own dedicated space, maybe with a few more guards around in case anyone got cold feet. But apparently they’re just stuck in various corridor junctions in this one very multi-purpose building, which is surely going to cause some traffic problems in these corridors on days with a particularly high body count.
Kirk leads the group in a careful creep down the corridor towards the machine, but as they approach another junction they suddenly and almost literally run into Mea coming the other way. She actually starts to walk right past them without seeing them, but Kirk quickly grabs her by the arm and pulls her off to the side, scaring the bejeezus out of her in the process.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he demands, and then cuts off her flustered stammering by telling her that she’s not going in there. Mea protests that she must and tries to get away, but Kirk’s got her by the upper arm, which as we all know makes it impossible for a woman to escape. “Please, don’t worry about me!” she says, while meanwhile the guard down the corridor continues to somehow be oblivious to all this.
Speaking of which, Kirk directs Spock towards said guard, and Spock sets off down the corridor while Kirk covers him with the gun they took off the chamber guard, still holding onto Mea with his other hand. For someone who supposedly has no qualms about getting in that chamber, she sure isn’t struggling a whole lot against the person preventing her from doing it.
[ID: A gif from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory of Gene Wilder’s Willy Wonka saying, “Help. Police. Murder,” with a totally deadpan expression.]
Down by the disintegration booth, a couple more people have shown up to be, ahem, processed. (And none of them have noticed anything either.) Spock casually strolls up to the Sack Hat, who surprisingly does not shoot him on the spot.
[ID: A gif of Spock walking up to one of the guards with silly hats and saying, “Sir, there’s a multi-legged creature crawling on your shoulder.” When the guard turns his head to look, Spock nerve pinches him.]
Having pulled off that legendary little maneuver, Spock then grabs the guy’s gun and backs up the way he came, while everyone else watches nervously. Including the other guards—apparently only that one had a gun. Once Spock is back with the group, Kirk yells at everyone to clear the area, then shoots the door of the disintegration booth. I might have aimed for the control panel, but apparently Kirk’s idea works too, because the whole thing starts smoking dangerously.
“What are you doing?” Mea exclaims in horror. “Throwing a monkey wrench into the machinery,” Kirk replies, undoubtedly a confusing statement for poor Mea who would have no idea what a monkey wrench is. “You can’t do this!” she yells, but as Kirk points out, he already has. Right on cue, the chamber explodes. Kirk and co. make a hasty retreat, hauling Mea along for the ride.
[ID: A screenshot of the geometric corridor, with a door at the end of it that is emitting large clouds of smoke.]
and thus the execution chamber was itself executed
Back in the council room, the councilmen are sitting around their table listening gloomily to someone radioing in a report about the landing party’s hijinks. Anan looks particularly grim, and sends out an order to the security personnel to find the landing party and “if they resist, do what is necessary.” This is interspersed with scenes of people running away from an explosion. I’m reasonably sure it’s supposed to just be that one explosion, but the editing makes it look as if disintegration booths are blowing up left and right.
Anan moves on to calling up the planetary disruptor banks and telling them to lock onto the Enterprise. I guess he’s figured out by now that they’re not going to report for shore leave. “In ten seconds, open fire,” he says. “Destroy the starcruiser. Those are the orders of the council.”
After the break, we get a report from said starcruiser in the form of a ship’s log from Scotty:
“Ship’s log, stardate 3193.0—chief engineer Scott recording. The captain and first officer are overdue and missing on the surface of Eminiar 7. I have taken standard precautionary measures while we continue our attempts to locate them.”
To kill time while they wait for news, McCoy and Scotty are having a conversation about some flashing lights on one of the consoles.
[ID: A gif showing a goldshirt at work at the helm in the foreground, while in the background McCoy and Scotty are standing at one of the computer consoles, looking at a screen with some flashing colored lights on it. McCoy points at one of the lights and says something to Scotty.]
One of the helmsmen, a Mr. DePaul, starts making a standard station check-in report, but just as he’s getting to the part about the sensors not reporting anything he hastily corrects himself. The sensor readings aren’t zero, they’re off the scale! Man, they should really install more than just those two settings on those sensors.
Immediately after DePaul says this, something impacts the ship, causing the lights to flicker and the bridge to shake a bit, although no one falls over this time. When it all dies down, DePaul reports that the screens are holding firm, and that they just got hit by some real hefty sonic vibrations. “Decibels—eighteen to the twelfth power. If those screens weren’t up, we’d be totally disrupted by now.”
Okay…there’s a couple of problems with this. Eighteen to the twelfth power equals about one quadrillion, or 1,156,831,381,426,176, to be precise. For reference, it takes a mere 194 decibels before a sound is so loud it stops being a sound and becomes a shock wave. The Krakatoa explosion, the loudest sound recorded in our history of recording sounds so far, registered 172 decibels at about a hundred miles away. I don’t know what one quadrillion decibels would do to you, but I’d be willing to bet that “we’d be totally disrupted” is a bit of an understatement. Also, THERE’S NO SOUND IN SPACE.
At any rate, as McCoy muses, this at least proves pretty definitively that their suspicions are correct: the Eminians aren’t feeling real friendly towards them. “Aye, but what about our captain, and the landing party down there, somewhere?” Scotty says. “We get them out!” McCoy replies, because of course he does. “If they’re alive, and if we can find them,” Scotty says. “That’s a big planet.” Right, whereas a small planet we could search no problem.
“Not too big for the Enterprise to handle if it has to,” McCoy snaps back. Steady on there, Bones, we can’t just go around blowing up every planet that Kirk doesn’t come back from on time, there wouldn’t be any planets left.
Scotty points out that while the Enterprise might have Eminiar outgunned, they’re a bit limited on reprisal options at the moment: they can’t fire their phasers with the shields up, and they can’t risk lowering those shields while the Eminians have their crosshairs on them. They could shoot off a dozen or two photon torpedoes, though. Probably not a serious suggestion—though it’s hard to tell with Scotty sometimes—but unfortunately who should walk onto the bridge just in time to hear it but Ambassador Fox, resulting in a swift rebuke that Scotty is to do no such thing.
“Mr. Fox, we’re under attack!” Scotty protests, but Fox isn’t interested. He claims it’s all obviously a misunderstanding.
[ID: 1. A shot of the bridge seen from just in front of the helm, with McCoy, Scotty and Uhura all looking up at Fox, who is standing near the lift. Fox is saying, “And one of my jobs is to clear up misunderstandings.” 2. A very similar shot, with Scotty saying, “so what’s your other job?” and Fox replying, “being incredibly obnoxious of course”. ]
McCoy jumps in to angrily point out that the Eminians are holding Kirk, but Fox waves this off, saying they don’t have any proof of that. I mean, no solid proof, maybe, but they did fake his voice to send a message trying to get everyone to leave the ship, bit hard to come up with an innocent explanation for that one.
“I am responsible for the safety of this ship!” Scotty protests. “And I’m responsible for the success of this mission, and that’s more important than this ship!” Fox replies. Ooh, bad move. Not a good idea to tell Scotty that anything’s more important than the Enterprise at the best of times.
[ID: A shot of Scotty looking confused and betrayed, saying, “the FUCK did you just say”.]
Fox insists that they came here to establish diplomatic relations and dammit, they’re going to establish diplomatic relations, regardless of whether they’re attempting to kill us as we speak. And Fox’s orders—according to Fox, anyway—get priority. He tells Uhura to open a channel and tell the Eminians to expect a priority one message from him. Uhura looks rather less than impressed by all this, but she does it.
“There will be no punitive measures, gentlemen,” Fox says just before he exits back into the lift. “Those are my orders.” I like how he addresses that not just to Scotty but to the whole bridge, presumably expecting that McCoy might just start throwing things out the window at the planet otherwise.
“Diplomats,” Scotty sneers. “The best diplomat I know is a fully armed phaser bank!”
Down on the planet the landing party is hurrying back into their original holding cell, choosing it as a place of cover since, as Kirk explains, it’s the last place the guards are likely to look for them. Mea is still insisting that Kirk has to let her go, because her time is almost up. Kirk asks if she’s really that anxious to die, and Mea starts to say, “You don’t understand--” before Kirk, undoubtedly seeing another rendition of the same rhetoric from before in his future, just cuts her off to talk to Spock instead.
Spock reports that their raids on the disintegration booths have netted them four guns, two complete Sack Hat uniforms, and, most importantly, a communication device. Unfortunately, it’s not able to reach the ship. But Spock thinks that with a bit of time he might be able to jury-rig it to get a longer range.
While Spock gets to work on that, Kirk pulls Mea aside and says that he wants her to give him a complete layout of the complex, especially regarding how he can get to the war room. Unsurprisingly, Mea refuses. “Now listen to me,” Kirk tells her, employing his favorite rhetoric technique of grabbing people by the shoulders. “I’m trying to help you. To save your life, and the lives of millions like you. If you help me, maybe I can do it. If you don’t, you’ll die. We’ll die, and the killing will go on—or are you that fond of the war?”
Mea, for the first time, really hesitates. “I believe you,” she says, looking down sadly. “But...”
“Tell me what I want to know,” Kirk says, still holding her by the shoulders. “Please.”
Back in the council room, Anan is standing at the table, addressing the other councilmen. Their situation’s not looking good: they haven’t been able to take out the Enterprise, they’ve lost a disintegration chamber, the prisoners are running loose, they’re behind on their death quota (the worst kind of quota), and they’re rapidly running out of time to fix any of these problems. Anan openly admits that he doesn’t know what to do now.
But at that point, a messenger suddenly comes in to tell the council that the Earth ambassador is calling them with an urgent message. Anan pauses woefully and says, “What is the greater morality...open honestly, or a deception which may save our lives?” Well, y’all have already committed one deception and didn’t seem too fussed about that, I don’t know why you’re having moral qualms about it now. Apparently said moral qualms aren’t too great anyway, because Anan sits down without waiting for a reply and asks to be put through to the Earth ambassador.
Up on the Enterprise, Uhura tells Fox that a channel is open and that he’ll be talking to “Anan 7, head of the high council of the Eminian Union.” McCoy and Scotty are standing by, ready to start yelling at a moment’s notice.
After brief formalities, Fox cuts to the chase: we came here to make friends, and you attacked us, and also you’re holding our landing party? What the heck? Anan smoothly replies that this was all one big mistake—a sensor error indicated the Enterprise was about to attack them, and, well, they are at war, after all. But no worries, it won’t happen again! Water under the bridge! Not even a thing! And as for the landing party? Don’t even worry about it.
[ID: 1. Scotty standing behind Uhura at her comm station, his arms folded and a disbelieving look on his face. Over the comm, Anan is saying, “You have my sacred word as an Eminian...”2. A shot from a different angle, showing Fox and McCoy standing behind Uhura, as Scotty says, “no good. I’ve known too many Eminians.”]
Fox smugly says that he thought all this just had to be a mistake, giving Scotty quite the eyeball in the process. Scotty is not impressed, and when the helmsman reports that the disruptor beams are no longer hitting them, Scotty immediately tells him to maintain their status anyway. Meanwhile, Anan is going on about how they’re really very eager to establish relations with the Federation and he’s so sorry about all the accidentally-shooting-you business, but we see him pause in the middle of it to mute his mic and tell the councilman next to him, “The moment their screens are down, open fire.”
Oblivious to all this, Fox tells Anan that he expects Kirk to be there when he beams down, and Anan assures him that Kirk will be. Satisfied with that, Fox tells Anan that Eminiar and the Federation are going to be best buds, he just knows it, and he can’t wait to meet Anan in person. Then he hangs up, turns to Scotty and McCoy, and rather snidely says, “Diplomacy, gentlemen, should be a job left to diplomats.” Well, sure, but keeping the ship from getting blown up should be a job left to people with a good track record for not getting the ship blown up.
He then casually adds that they will, of course, immediately resume a peaceful status. “No, sir, I will not,” Scotty replies, in a Superman pose for good measure.
[ID: A shot of Scotty standing behind Uhura, chest out and hands on his hips like Superman, saying, “No, sir, I will not.”]
“What did you say??” Fox demands, stunned and outraged. Scotty is unperturbed. “I’ll not lower the screens, not until the captain tells me to.” Fox tries to remind Scotty that he’s taking orders from Fox and he is to lower those screens as a show of good faith right now, young man!
“I know about your authority,” Scotty replies doggedly, “but the screens stay up.” Fox just stares at him, dumbfounded and clearly at a loss as to how to respond to this. (For a diplomat, you’d think he’d be better at handling it when people don’t do exactly as he wants them to.)
McCoy chimes in at this point to remind Fox that the Eminians have fired on the ship and faked a message from Kirk—and now you want us to trust them, just like that? It’s actually quite restrained for McCoy, but he’s got a good point: the whole “whooops we accidentally fired on your ship, just a misunderstanding, our bad!” thing doesn’t do anything to explain the fact that they faked a message from the captain, something Fox didn’t even attempt to bring up with Anan. But Fox, of course, ignores this. “I want and expect you to obey my lawful orders!” he demands. “No sir!” Scotty insists. “I won’t lower the screens!”
Fox, now in the middle of a full-blown fit, splutters that Scotty is endangering the success of this whole mission, and Fox could have him sent to a penal colony for this! It seems rather unlikely that Fox, however high his diplomatic clout, could have someone sent to prison just like that without at least a court martial first. But who knows how these things work in the Federation? On the plus side, I’m sure the penal colonies are much nicer now that they’ve taken out the brain-melting machines.
“That you can, sir,” Scotty says, without the barest flinch. “But I won’t lower the screens.” Stone. Cold.
“Your name will figure prominently in my report to the Federation central!” Fox fumes, and stalks off angrily into the lift.
“Well, Scotty, now you’ve done it,” McCoy says. Hey! Whose side are you on here?
[ID: A shot of Scotty looking tired and saying, “Aye. The haggis is in the fire for sure...” while McCoy stands behind him with his arms crossed.]
yeah that’s definitely something Scottish people say
Back down on the planet, Anan has retreated to some private quarters and is drowning his woes with a stiff drink, from a bottle that’s a lot more neck than bottle.
[ID: A shot of Anan standing at a low stone table, holding a green glass bottle with an extremely long neck, having just poured it into one of three glasses positioned on the table.]
the perfect design for when what you really want is a high glass: alcohol ratio.
But he’s not even managed to take a sip before Kirk suddenly steps into the room behind him. Anan pauses, obviously realizing he’s there—presumably because he heard the sudden musical sting—and says, “Won’t you join me in a drink, captain? You’ll find our trova most interesting.” First tranya, now trova. I’m starting to pick up a naming pattern with these made-up alien drinks.
Kirk’s not interested in acquiring new tastes at the moment, though. “I didn’t come here to drink,” he says flatly. You don’t say.
Anan points to the disruptor Kirk is currently pointing at him and says, “I presume that is what you used to destroy disintegration chamber twelve.” Kirk calmly remarks that it’s a very efficient weapon, and one that he’s not afraid to use.
“My first impression was correct.” [siiiiiiiiiip] “You ARE a barbarian.”
Anan goes on to say that there’s no need for Kirk to look confused—of course he’s a barbarian. “We all are. A killer first, a builder second. A hunter, a warrior, and—let’s be honest—a murderer. That is our joint heritage, is it not?” Wow. Projecting much?
Anyway, Kirk’s not here to talk about philosophy any more than he’s here to have a drink. What he wants is to contact his ship, so where are the communicators? “In a safe place,” Anan answers calmly. “You take a lot of chances, councilman,” Kirk warns, but Anan, still not intimidated, replies that Kirk may be worried about his ship, but Anan is trying to save a whole world.
Kirk suddenly elbows Anan up against the all and says, “If I were you, I’d think about saving my life.” Good one liner. But it’s ineffective against Anan, who only looks glumly back and says, “Won’t you have a drink, captain?”
You could interpret this as Anan simply calling Kirk’s bluff, and to an extent I think it is that—Anan’s already seen how outraged Kirk was at the idea of this war even before he knew that it would have an effect on him and his ship, and the fact that Anan has received reports about destroyed disintegration machines but no reports about deaths should tell him that at the least, Kirk is not inclined to kill if he doesn’t have to, even in a situation where doing so would further his goals. But I also get the impression that Anan is so unperturbed even by imminent danger because he’s all but given up. Practically everything Anan says throughout the episode is dour, glum, positively Eeyore-ish. Over and over we hear him say some variation on, “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about it.” Coupled with the fact that his wife has died recently in the same attacks that dominate Anan’s life day in and day out, which he clearly sees no hope of ever ending but has to carry on responding to anyway, it’s not a big leap to guess that he might just have all but stopped caring about his own life.
Kirk, clearly realizing that this tack isn’t working, looks at Anan for a long moment, then slowly backs off, shrugs, picks up the bottle, and pours himself a glass. Careful there. Never trust a drink described as interesting. Then he makes the mistake of strolling away a bit, and while his back is turned, Anan surreptitiously presses a small button under the bar, while saying, “And then we can discuss our differences.”
“I’m not interested in discussing our differences,” Kirk says. “You don’t seem to realize the risk you’re taking. We don’t make war with computers and herd the casualties into suicide stations. We make the real thing, councilman. I could destroy this planet.” Dang! Sometimes you forget Starfleet is supposed to be a military, but not in this episode, huh.
Anan says that’s exactly why he’s not letting Kirk talk to his ship, but Kirk says no, he doesn’t need the ship. “You mean, all by yourself, with a disruptor, you could destroy this planet?” “That’s exactly what I mean.” A heck of a claim there, but it might not be a bluff. If Kirk destroys enough of the Eminian infrastructure to leave them unable to meet their casualties quota, Vendikar would attack, and probably destroy the planet in the process. Despite their guards carrying lethal weapons, at the end of the day Eminiar doesn’t seem to be prepared for much in the way of real, physical resistance, considering the way they responded when Kirk and Spock blew up that one chamber. They probably have no need to be, if everyone is as compliant in reporting in as Mea.
But Anan clearly isn’t taking this threat anymore seriously than the more immediate one being levied against him personally. When Kirk once again demands to know where the communicators are, Anan says, “If I told you, captain, would you walk right out and get them?” “Something like that,” Kirk says. “Very well, captain. They’re in the war room. Go left, down the corridor, left again. They are unguarded.”
Kirk walks over to the door, then pauses and gestures Anan over. As soon as Anan gets within range, Kirk grabs him. He might not have actually seen Anan press the button, but he clearly still doesn’t trust Anan as far as he can throw him—which indeed he does, out the door and straight into the Sack Hat that was right outside. Unfortunately for Kirk, another Sack Hat is just arriving, and he quickly leaps into the fray.
[ID: A gif showing Kirk in a fight with two guards. He barrels into one guard, spins him around, and throws him into the opposite wall, then kicks a second guard in the ribs and chops him on the back of the neck, knocking him the floor. The first guard gets up and tries to punch Kirk but Kirk manages to throw him to the floor, only to have the second guard back up him up against the wall.]
Kirk gives it his best effort, but in the end one of the Sack Hats manages to whack him on the back of the head with the disruptor, which puts him out for the count. Anan examines Kirk and sees that he’s stunned but still alive. “Pity,” he says. “A man like that would’ve...preferred to die fighting. Take him to the council room.” Pretty sure he would’ve preferred not to die at all, actually.
The guards drag the half-conscious Kirk away, letting him dangle between them in a position that must have been hell on the knees.
[ID: Anan watching two guards, walking in very awkward positions, haul a limp Kirk away, his knees dragging on the floor.]
actually I’m willing to bet all three of those people had sore knees in the morning
After the break, we get another exterior shot of the city—in fact it’s the exact same exterior shot of the city-- followed by Fox beaming down at the same place where the landing party originally did. He’s accompanied by a man that I assume is a subordinate of his, based on the fact that his clothing is similar to Fox’s but his collar is much smaller. Must be a status thing.
Anan and an attending Sack Hat stroll up to greet them, and pleasantries are exchanged. But as soon as the two have been led inside, Anan turns to Fox and says, “Mr. Ambassador...I am sorry for what must happen.” Which is never a good way for a conversation to start. Anan proceeds to tell the baffled and increasingly alarmed Fox that he and his aide have been declared war casualties, and will be taken immediately to a disintegration booth so their deaths can be recorded.
Which seems like a significant tactical error, actually. I get that Anan is desperate to start getting the casualties from the Enterprise reported, but Fox is pretty much the only person on that ship who’s not immensely distrustful of the Eminians right now. If they kept up the act for a while longer and let him report in and tell the Enterprise that everything’s fine down here, really, see, I told you—well, it probably still wouldn’t convince Scotty, but it’s definitely going to convince him that something’s amiss if Fox beams down and immediately disappears and is never heard from again. Then again, if the Eminians were that good at tactics this war probably wouldn’t have gone on for five hundred years.
“You mean...we are to be killed?” Fox says weakly, while one of the Sack Hats starts tugging his file folder out of his arms.
“That is correct, Mr. Ambassador,” Anan says sadly, just like he says everything. “I very much regret it, but there is nothing I can do about it.”
He then walks off, leaving Fox to just stand there looking absolutely dumbfounded until the Sack Hat starts hauling the two of them away. Well, that’s a bummer. Not only has he just learned he’s about to be executed, he’s also learned he was wrong. The Eminians were up to something! Even if he gets out of being executed he’s going to have to eat so much crow he might prefer being executed.
Back in the holding cell—where, true to Kirk’s prediction, the guards have still not found the landing party—Spock is sitting on a couch tinkering with one of the Eminian communicators while Mea and the redshirts watch. I say redshirts, but only Yeoman Tamura is still wearing red; the security guys have put on the uniforms they stole from the Sack Hats.
It seems that whatever Spock did—installed a new SIM card, perhaps—was a success, because when he tries to call the Enterprise Uhura picks it up. Scotty immediately rushes over to take the call. The first thing Spock asks about is the ship, which Scotty confirms has taken a few hits but is still doing alright. He, naturally, wants to know what’s been going on with the landing party. Spock tells him that they’ve suffered no casualties, but Kirk is overdue to come back from his little solo jaunt. But never mind that now—the most important thing for the crew to know right now is that no one, under any circumstances, should beam down from the ship, because they’d be killed immediately. No one, you got that? No one. You haven’t beamed anyone down, have you? Because you shouldn’t. It’d be very bad, if you did that.
Scotty’s like, “Well. Uh. About that,” and tells Spock that Fox just beamed down not five minutes ago. “...The ambassador,” Spock says, although his tone says, “aw, goddammit.” He then tells Scotty to get out of maximum phaser range from the planet and wait for further orders, then hangs up. I do have to wonder how Fox beamed down, actually, since the fact that the Enterprise is still in orbit instead of having been shot out of the sky proves that they didn’t drop the shields. Then again, Spock called himself a Vulcanian earlier, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised they hadn’t worked out the whole “no beaming through the shields” thing yet either.
Spock takes a moment to nurse a “well, fuck” expression, then regretfully gets up and tells Tamura he’s going to go rescue that damn stupid bloody ambassador, ugh, I guess, if I have to. Oh, and Kirk too. “You stay here,” he adds, “and prevent this young lady from immolating herself. Knock her down and sit on her if necessary, this is a killing situation. Do what you must to protect yourself. Clear?” “Yes sir.” Man, someone’s just full of snark this episode.
He and the two redshirts in disguise head out, while Tamura turns to watch Mea, who looks at the camera with a somewhat sulky expression, but doesn’t attempt resistance. Speaking of said damn stupid bloody ambassador, Fox and Friend are currently being hauled, struggling, down the endless corridor toward a disintegration station. Actually, only Fox is really struggling, his aide seems rather apathetic towards the situation.
While the Sack Hats are trying to shove Fox into the chamber--despite his protests that he’s “a representative of the United Federation of Planets! A special representative!”--Spock and the redshirts come walking down the corridor, pulling the ol�� ‘you guys pretend to take me prisoner’ trick. They use one of the redshirts ushering Spock into the line as a pretense for Spock to get close to the Sack Hat holding onto the aide, at which point Spock quickly takes him out while the redshirts handle the other Sack Hats.
Fox is all “wait what” but he’s got no time to be confused because Spock none-too-gently herds him and his aide back down the corridor. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he tells the crowd of confused and concerned casualties-in-waiting, “please move quickly away from the chamber, or you may be injured.” Everyone obediently scrambles for cover while Spock and the group back up down the corridor, guns at the ready. When Fox asks what they’re doing, Spock replies, “Practicing a peculiar variety of diplomacy, sir.” Then he blows up the chamber.
Spock says that he’ll take Fox to a place of comparative safety before finding the captain, but Fox stops him and says he knows where Kirk is—the Sack Hats, for some reason, told him and the aide that they took Kirk to the council room under heavy guard. Spock nods and says, “By now, Mr. Ambassador, I’m sure you realize that normal diplomatic procedures are ineffective here.” Fox looks pretty subdued, but he says, “I’ve never been a soldier, Mr. Spock...but I learn very quickly.”
The group heads off past the burning chamber, while various panicked extras run around in the background. I notice no one asked the aide if he might not prefer to be taken to a place of comparative safety.
Cut to: Kirk, not dead, extremely unimpressed. He is, indeed, sitting in the council chamber, being lectured by Anan while some Sack Hats stand around him on guard and the rest of the council watches the exchange, still as superfluous as they have been all episode.
“Surely you can see the position we are in,” Anan is saying. “If your people do not report to our disintegration chambers, it is a violation of an agreement that dates back five hundred years.”
Kirk points out that he and his people can hardly be held responsible for whatever agreements Eminiar and Vendikar made between them, but Anan insists that they will be responsible for the ensuing escalation and everything that will come of it: “Millions of people horribly killed, complete destruction of our culture here—yes, and the culture on Vendikar! Disaster, disease, starvation. Horrible, lingering death! Pain and anguish!”
Kirk listens to all this with the kind of expression you might expect from a man who has firsthand experience with disaster…
[ID: A screenshot from The Galileo Seven of Kirk making his log and grimly reporting, “...that seven of our shipmates still have not been heard from.”]
...disease…
[ID: A screenshot from Miri of Kirk in the diplaidated classroom, sleeves ripped open and baring his arms covered in blue lesions, yelling, “Look at my arms!”]
...starvation…
[ID: Two screenshots from The Conscience of the King of McCoy and Spock walking through a corridor at night, as Spock says, “There were over 8,000 colonists and virtually no food.”]
...horrible, lingering death…
[ID: A screenshot from Arena of McCoy and Kirk kneeling over the injured colonist among the rubble, as McCoy says, “Shock, radiation burns, internal injuries for certain.”]
...pain and anguish...
[ID: A screenshot from Balance of Terror of Kirk hugging Angela Martine to him and saying, “It never makes any sense.”]
...and is now sitting here listening to a lecture about it from someone who has spent a career upholding a system that allows him to deal out death without ever having to face any of those messy, dirty things firsthand himself. In particular I would imagine Anan must remind Kirk of Kodos to some degree. Back in The Conscience of the King, when Spock and McCoy were discussing Kodos’s rule, Spock mentions that the people Kodos had executed died “without pain—but they died.” In many ways it’s the same rhetoric, really—it’s regrettable that all these people have to die, but it’s for the good of the society as a whole. We’ll make it quick and painless. Humane. You understand.
But all Kirk says to Anan is, “That seems to frighten you.”
“It would frighten any sane man!” Anan cries back. He’s still oblivious to the point Kirk is making for, instead doubling down on the same rhetoric we’ve heard from him all episode: we have done away with all that. We’ve done away with all the worst parts of war. Our way is better. Our way is the only way to avoid all that. And now you are going to be responsible for bringing it back. All the pain and suffering, all the destruction and noise and mess. Your fault. “Are those five hundred people of yours more important than the hundreds of millions of innocent people on Eminiar and Vendikar?” Anan demands. “What kind of monster are you?”
In the face of this, and the horrified stares of the other councilmen, Kirk only looks back calmly. “I’m a barbarian,” he says. “You said it yourself.” Level two, thinking about going for Path of the Berserker, haven’t decided yet.
“I had hoped I had spoken only figuratively,” Anan says, barely above a whisper. Oh, looks like someone was willing to dish out a lot of talk about “we’re all murderers” but doesn’t want to live up to it, huh. Kirk says, nope—Anan was totally right, and Kirk intends to prove it to him.
Anan furiously turns away and snaps at one of the councilmen to open a channel to the Enterprise. “You give me no choice, captain. We are not bandits, but you force us to act as bandits.” Okay, I really gotta ask what the heck Anan’s definition of ‘bandit’ is.
Before he can say more, Scotty answers the call, and Kirk immediately lunges forward for the table before the guards can catch him. “Scotty, General Order Twenty-Four in two hours! In two hours!” he yells, before the Sack Hats finally manage to wrestle him back into his seat.
“Enterprise, this is Anan 7, first councilman of the high council of Eminiar,” Anan says, trying to pretend like that didn’t just happen. “We hold your captain, his party, your ambassador, and his party prisoners. Unless you immediately start transportation of all personnel aboard your ship to the surface, the hostages will be killed. You have thirty minutes.” Oh, that’s fine, then. Scotty can do anything as long as he’s got thirty minutes.
[ID: A screenshot from The Naked Time of Scotty saying, “I got to have 30 minutes.”]
Anan insists to Kirk that he really means it—okay he totally just lied about having the rest of the landing party captive but he still really means it okay—but Kirk just shrugs and says that all that means is that he’ll be leaving the party an hour and a half earlier than he would anyway, because General Order Twenty-Four is an order for the Enterprise to destroy the entire planet. Immediately Anan wheels back to the comm and orders the planetary defense system to open fire on the Enterprise, but they can’t—the ship has moved out of range. Thanks Spock!
“You wouldn’t do this,” Anan says desperately. “Hundreds of millions of people.”
“I didn’t start it, councilman,” Kirk says. “But I’m liable to finish it.” ♫We didn’t start the war with Vendikar♫--nah, needs work.
Back in the endless corridor, Spock’s party encounters a couple of Sack Hats, leading to a disruptor-off. The guards go down, but so does Fox’s aide, so they just kind of...leave him huddled up against the wall and keep going. Man, no one cares about that dude, huh.
In the council chambers, a guy comes rushing in to announce in a panic that they’ve received a message from Vendikar accusing them of reneging on the treaty, on the grounds that their time is nearly up but their quota is still short by several thousand. Okay, hold the phone here. Sure, the Enterprise is currently making up a big chunk of that unmet quota, but there’s only about four hundred twenty people on there. As far as we’ve seen the landing party has only managed to destroy two booths, both located in one building in one city out of the entire planet—and given that we saw those booths process about one person every couple of minutes or so, there have to be a lot more than two of them because otherwise they’d never be able to process thousands of people in that time period no matter what was going on! How the hell can they be short by several thousand people? What have you guys been doing? Did everyone get so freaked out about what was going on that they just ran around in circles screaming for the past several hours instead of doing their jobs?
Anyway, Anan tells Kirk that, “You see? It’s started,” and Kirk replies, “You’re wrong. It hasn’t begun.” That really doesn’t mean anything, but okay. Someone else then calls in to report about the landing party’s recent antics, which have left two guards unresponsive and one more disintegration booth destroyed. Kirk definitely has quite a smug look on his face when he hears that, and he reminds Anan that he has less than two hours now.
“What I want or don’t want has nothing to do with it!” Anan insists. “Escalation is automatic! You can stop it!”
“Stop it?” Kirk says, clearly enjoying milking this situation for every drop of dramatic one-liners he can get. “I’m COUNTing on it!”
Up on the Enterprise, Scotty tells Uhura to open a channel to the council. “This is the commander of the USS Enterprise,” he tells them. “All cities and installations on Eminiar 7 have been located, identified, and fed into our fire control system. In one hour and forty-five minutes, the entire inhabited surface of your planet will be destroyed.” At this last, Uhura spins around in her chair to give him a shocked look, even though she certainly heard Kirk give General Order Twenty-Four in the first place. “You have that long to surrender your hostages,” Scotty goes on, paying no mind to this.
In the council room, Anan is finally having an absolute breakdown. “What can I do?” he moans, slumping over onto the council table in abject despair. “Somebody, please tell me.”
Then, for some reason, one of the Sack Hats guarding the door steps forward—I dunno, maybe he was going to give Anan a comforting pat on the back or something, but it gives Kirk the opportunity to trip him. Then he pushes the second door guard into the remaining two Sack hats.
[ID: Kirk and three guards in a tussle against the bland gray wall of the war room.]
gentlemen, you can’t fight in here, this is the war room!
In the confusion Kirk manages to grab a weapon off one of them, which he points at the last remaining guard as he runs forward. Just like that, Kirk is in control of the situation. He chivvies all the guards and councilmen, including Anan, over to the door, then picks up another gun and says, “Now we’ll talk.”
Just after the nick of time, the door opens and Spock and crew come running in with their weapons pointed. There’s immense confusion among everyone for a moment.
“I had assumed you needed help,” Spock says, sounding just a tad reproachful that Kirk managed to get free on his own after Spock went to all this trouble. “I see I’m in error.”
“No, I need the help,” Kirk says, with, it must be said, an incredibly fond smile on his face. He opens the door to the computer room and directs Spock inside, then calls up the Enterprise. “Everything’s secure here,” he tells Scotty. “If everything goes according to plan, you can beam us up in ten minutes. If you don’t hear from us, carry out General Order Twenty-Four, on schedule.” Now there’s a check-in you don’t want to miss. Might want to set a timer or something just in case.
“Aye aye, captain,” Scotty says. “Is there anything else we can do?” “Cross your fingers. Kirk out.”
Kirk hangs up and looks back at Anan. “Death...destruction, disease, horror...”
[ID: A gif from Monty Python’s Flying Circus of Michael Palin, dressed as a cheesy talk show host on a cheesy talk show set, happily saying, “Blood, devastation, death, war and horror.”]
“That’s what war is all about, Anan. That’s what makes it a thing to be avoided. You’ve made it neat and painless. So neat and painless, you’ve had no reason to stop it. And you’ve had it for five hundred years. Since it seems to be the only way I can save my crew and my ship, I’m going to end it for you, one way or another. Mr. Ambassador?”
“Yes, captain?” Fox says, remarkably politely, for Fox. Kirk instructs him to take everyone out into the corridor and hold them there, except for one councilman he has a redshirt usher into the computer room, where Kirk tells him to show them where the communicators and phasers are. With that sorted, Kirk gets a low-down on the computer situation from Spock: they’ve got some attack computers, one for defense, and one for calculating the casualties. All of them are tied into a subspace transmission unit so that they’re in constant contact with the equivalent computers on Vendikar. If contact is ever broken, the treaty immediately becomes null and void. Also, Spock’s locked a circuit so that destroying one key computer will take out all of them. Excuse me, who set up this system? It should not be so easy to destroy all your vital computers at once. Please tell me you at least have a decent surge protector in here.
Kirk has the redshirt haul the wildly protesting councilman away, then shoots the key computer. He and Spock quickly run out and tell everyone to get up against the walls, right before the computers all blow up.
Anan wades through the ensuing smoke and raspily asks if they realize what they’ve done. “Yes, I do,” Kirk says. “I’ve given you back the horrors of war. The Vendikans will now assume that you’ve broken your agreement, and that you’re preparing to rage real war with real weapons. They’ll want to do the same, only the next attack they launch will do a lot more than just count up numbers in a computer. They’ll destroy your cities, devastate your planet. You, of course, will want to retaliate. If I were you, I’d start making bombs. Yes, councilman, you have a real war on your hands. You can either wage it with real weapons, or you might consider an alternative—put an end to it. Make peace.”
Anan insists there can’t and won’t be any peace. “Don’t you see? We’ve admitted it to ourselves. We’re a killer species. It’s instinctive. It’s the same with you, your General Order Twenty-Four.”
Yeah, about that General Order Twenty-Four. It’s pretty weird! The idea that Starfleet has a regulation in place for destroying all life on a planet and that said regulation can be casually invoked by a single captain is not only bizarre in terms of the tone of the series as a whole, it doesn’t even line up that well with what we’ve already seen. We know Starfleet doesn’t give that much autonomy to their captains—what would be the point of even having the Prime Directive if people can just go around obliterating entire cultures whenever they want? And, of course, it’s pretty ridiculous to think that Kirk, who earlier this episode said “We’re gonna use non-lethal force to knock out these guards even though they’re literally trying to kill our entire crew right now” would be so casually down with the idea of committing genocide.
This is all so weird that most people prefer to theorize that the whole thing was an elaborate bluff, presumably some standing arrangement between Kirk and Scotty. The episode never says that it was, but it doesn’t definitively say it couldn’t have been, either—although one minor problem with that is that is that GO24 does get mentioned in a much later episode, where it’s implied to mean basically the same thing as it does here. There’s also the fact that in a minute we’ll hear Kirk, while talking to Scotty with no Eminians listening, say “Cancel General Order Twenty-Four,” instead of anything to the effect of “Hey, our bluff worked,” or whatever.
But, for the sake of maintaining some degree of character consistency, we could say that perhaps GO24 does exist in some capacity, but is not something that would ever actually be used in a situation such as this. Perhaps it’s a purely theoretical protocol that exists in case of some situation that’s never actually yet occurred. Either Scotty knows Kirk and also Starfleet protocol well enough to immediately assume this is a bluff and act accordingly, or—a bit more of a stretch, but still possible-- ‘General Order Twenty-Four’ is a standing code between them that actually means something like ‘beam us up and GTFO pronto,’ which would explain why Kirk has to ‘cancel’ it in the end.
I think what confuses me even more is not just that GO24 doesn’t make sense in the greater context of the series, but that doesn’t even make a lot of sense in the context of this episode. Kirk invoking it doesn’t move the plot forward in any way. Even as a bluff it doesn’t do anything, because it doesn’t in any way lead to Kirk getting the upper hand—he does that all on his own a few moments later just by tripping the guard, and he doesn’t need the leverage from Scotty threatening GO24 to carry out the rest of his plans. I’m not even sure what the in-story motivation for it is, outside of the possibility of it actually meaning something else as just described (which might work as an explanation but is very unlikely to be what was intended because there’s no actual indication of it anywhere). Sure, ordinarily, ‘do what I say or I’ll destroy your entire planet’ would be a pretty effective threat, but Anan already thinks that his planet will be destroyed if he does what Kirk wants—whatever that is, because Kirk hasn’t actually made any specific demands clear to him. From Anan’s perspective it’s just a choice between having his planet blown up by Vendikar, or having it blown up by Kirk, whose bluff he’s already called once when Kirk had a gun to his head. It’s not a big leap to say that he’d prefer trying to call it again to angering Vendiker, who he was very sure would retaliate.
But if GO24 was a bluff in some way, Kirk sure doesn’t feel the need to enlighten Anan of that fact now. Instead he takes a different argumentative tack altogether.
[ID: Two gifs showing a scene of Kirk talking to Anan, with Spock standing next to Kirk and Fox standing behind Anan. Kirk is saying, “All right, it’s instinctive. But the instinct can be fought. We’re human beings, with the blood of a million savage years on our hands, but we can stop it. We can admit that we’re killers, but we’re not going to kill today...Contact Vendikar. I think you’ll find that they’re just as terrified, appalled, horrified as you are, that they’ll do anything to avoid the alternative I’ve given you. Peace or utter destruction. It’s up to you.”]
At this point Fox smoothly cuts in to point out that, whaddya know, here you’ve got a neutral third party with ambassadorial expertise, be a shame not to use him, huh? Anan admits—and boy has it been like pulling teeth to get him to admit even this—that maybe there might be something of a very slim chance. They do have a direct channel with Vendikar’s own council, which hasn’t been used in centuries, apparently. Oh I see, so you’ve just been sitting on that this whole time, huh? Yeah, trying real hard to stop this inevitable war.
The two of them walk off, while Kirk and Spock watch them go. “There’s a chance it may work, captain,” Spock says. Kirk just smiles at him, then pulls out his communicator and tells Scotty to cancel General Order Twenty-Four (see? told ya) and beam them up. You might want to specify that Fox isn’t beaming up too, or there’s going to be an awkward situation here in a minute.
Sometime later, on the Enterprise bridge, Kirk is telling the helmsmen to lay in a course for their next destination. Uhura reports a message from Fox: negotiations underway with Vendikar, outlook hopeful. Kirk and McCoy, who’s hovering protectively near the captain’s chair, exchange nods.
“Captain...” Spock says, “You took a big chance.”
“Did I, Mr. Spock?” Kirk asks. “They have been killing 3 million people a year. It had been going on for 500 years. An actual attack wouldn’t have killed any more people than one of their computer attacks, but it would’ve ended their ability to make war. The fighting would’ve been over, permanently.”
Still, as McCoy points out, he didn’t know his plan would work. Kirk admits that it was a calculated risk, but “The Eminians keep a very orderly society, and actual war is a very messy business—a very, very messy business. I had a feeling they would do anything to avoid it, even talk peace.”
[ID: A gif of Kirk and Spock talking on the bridge. Spock says, “A feeling is not much to go on.” Kirk says, “Sometimes a feeling is all we humans have to go on.” Spock says, “Captain...You almost make me believe in luck.” Kirk replies, “Why, Mr. Spock, you almost make me believe in miracles.”]
With that, the camera pans out and the Enterprise heads on its way. On its own this little denouement probably wouldn’t have been too bad an example of TOS’s tendency to try to end serious episode on comedic notes. Sure, it’s got a bit of that “everyone laughs, fade out” vibe, but it also discusses the heavy events of the episode with a tone that’s less overtly jolly and more a kind of ‘laughing mostly out of relief now that it’s all over’ feel. Except for the fact that after Kirk says his last line, there’s a little Humorous Musical Sting that plays over Spock’s expression in response, which completely changes it from ‘fond friends commiserating over having survived a tough situation’ to a joke at Spock’s expense that doesn’t even make sense as a joke. And that’s why it’s so dangerous for the power of post-production to fall into the wrong hands.
One other thing you might have noticed is a complete lack of any mention of the Prime Directive in all this, not even a half-hearted one like we got in The Return of the Archons. Which is pretty notable considering that what Kirk just did there would appear to be a pretty major violation of said directive—basically the exact opposite of what they’re supposed to be doing, really. It’s perhaps not surprising given both the other examples of early installment weirdness in this episode and the fact that its tone is in general a bit more, shall we say, aggressive than TOS often is. Even at the end no one questions whether what Kirk did was morally right, only how he could be sure it would work.
I think it’s mostly just something you have to ignore, although I actually find it easier to accept that the Federation would not protest too hard about the whole thing in this instance, mostly because of that line from Fox about thousands of lives being lost in the area over the past two decades. I’m not sure why so many people were going through what was apparently a quite dangerous section of space to begin with, but the point is, at some point this war stopped being a matter that was only between Vendikar and Eminiar. It was becoming a problem for the rest of the galaxy as well. Vendikar apparently wasn’t doing anything about it, and with Eminiar’s “well really it’s your fault for coming over here :////” attitude they clearly weren’t about to do anything to rein it in either. It doesn’t much surprise me that the Federation would have turned a blind eye to Kirk violating the directive in this case, considering how many lives he ultimately saved by doing so. They’ve turned a blind eye to worse, let’s be honest.
A Taste of Armageddon is one of TOS’s more powerful allegorical stories, although what it appears to be an allegory for has changed over time. It aired in the midst of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, and could hardly fail to be at least influenced by that, although I am certainly not the person to be able to dissect the intricacies of that influence. Nowadays, of course, the idea of conducting a war via computers and never having to see the results is a lot less of a sci-fi what-if and a lot more chillingly relevant. The whole thing reads as such an accurate criticism of drone strikes and other such remote forms of warfare that it feels downright prescient.
But for as much as you could read this episode as a comment, prescient or otherwise, on the dangers of how technology might affect warfare, it strikes me as interesting because of the contrast between it and most of the TOS episodes that are in some sense about being leery of technological advances. Often in TOS, when we see computers that are scary in some way—What Are Little Girls Made Of?, The Return of the Archons, The Changeling, The Ultimate Computer, TMP, etc—it’s because those computers achieved some form of sapience and thus, some form of control over the people who invented them. They’re characters, active agents in their own stories. The use of computers in A Taste of Armageddon hits much closer to home because it matches today’s real fears about advances in AI. The fear for us right now is not “will the AI become sentient and kill us all?” it’s “how will more advanced AI be used against us by the people who control it?” The computer here isn’t sapient or aware. There’s no point at which Kirk tries to talk it out of doing what it’s doing, because it doesn’t know what it’s doing. It doesn’t know, or, as far as we can tell from what we see, even remotely have the capacity to know what the numbers it crunches mean in real-life terms. It’s basically just running a very advanced game of Starcraft.
So we can’t blame the computer for what happens. The blame can only be pinned on the people who are using the computer, and not even in a “we created this but now it’s run amok ahhhhhhhhh” kind of way. Every day for five hundred years people went in that war room and chose to use the computer to carry on the war, instead of making any effort to end it. And that’s where the real core of the episode’s message comes in.
To me, the allegory of A Taste of Armageddon has always seemed to be one that can be taken more broadly than being about one particular war, or one way of waging war. It need not necessarily be about war at all. Because one thing the story shows very clearly is the danger of allowing any system, any state of being for a society, to become inevitable. To be viewed as something that cannot be changed, cannot be altered, cannot be acted upon. The Eminians—and, we can assume, the Vendikarians—have bent their societies and their lives around this war for five hundred years, so long that even if the original grievance is still remembered, it surely can no longer be relevant. The Eminians claim that conducting the war this way preserves their culture and society, but the truth is that the war has become their culture and society. How could it not? If you lived every day of your life knowing that at any time the call might come in that your number’s up and it’s time to report for death, how could that not affect you?
We don’t see much of the Eminian outlook—the only two significant Eminian characters are Mea and Anan, everyone else is little more than an extra. But what we do get from those characters is telling. Mea, when pressed on the issue, repeats time and again that their way is the best way and the only way, and that doing anything else would turn out even worse. Anan offers that explanation as well at the beginning, but most of his remarks throughout the episode come down to a deferral of blame. “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do about it” is a refrain he repeats over and over.
Anan takes every opportunity to deny any control over the situation, and/or to deflect blame for it onto someone else. From the beginning he tells Kirk that it’s really his fault that everyone on the Enterprise has to die, because Kirk brought his ship there. Under other circumstances he might have a point about Kirk not heeding the warning (of course we know Kirk did heed it and only approached the planet when ordered to anyway by Fox, but Anan didn’t know that, and it’s mostly irrelevant anyway) but Anan acts as if his planet is gripped by some natural disaster that he can’t control, rather than a war which, as apparently the highest-ranked person on the planet, he has at least some ability to affect. And once Kirk makes his intentions to disrupt the war known, Anan really starts to buckle down on pinning the blame on him. If we go to war, real war, the blood of everyone that dies will be on your hands. Not ours, for starting this war and continuing it for five hundred years. Not mine, for not taking any action to end it. Yours, for doing anything to attempt to change the situation. Because if you’ve convinced yourself that there is only one possible way to handle a problem like this, then by default anyone who would attempt to implement another option must be misguided at best and actively and intentionally malicious at worst.
I don’t read Anan as someone who’s consciously using this deferral of blame as a manipulation tactic or whatever. I think he genuinely believes that he can’t do anything to affect the war. But that doesn’t let him off the hook in any way because I think he believes that because it’s easy. It’s much easier to think that your current course is not only correct but the only thing to do than it is to admit that there’s any chance that lives could have been saved if you had acted differently. And the longer you carry on a course, and the more the cost of doing so stacks up, the harder it is to change it, because doing so feels tantamount to admitting that those costs didn’t have to be paid. You have to carry on, because otherwise it will have all been for nothing. It’s called the sunk costs fallacy. If Anan ever was willing to challenge the status quo—which I doubt, but it’s possible--he’s clearly lost all such ambitions by the time of the episode. It’s hard to change things. Easier to apologize for not being able to change them.
And, of course, that’s all too real a message. Pick a topic, any topic—gun control, healthcare, capitalism, climate change, whatever you want—and think about how many times you’ve heard rhetoric to the effect of, “It sucks but there’s no point attempting to change things because the system we’ve got is the best possible one there could be.” It’s easy to look at Eminian society and their willingness to die when told to by a computer and call it laughable (and, look, I’m not saying it makes total sense—this is a Star Trek episode, after all), but completely preventable deaths occur every day in our societies, often for really no less arbitrary reason. At the risk of getting too intensely topical here, do you really think it would seem any less absurd to the TOS characters that we let people die because they can’t personally afford things that we have to spare?
I think that TOS usually did better when it made its allegories and its moral points more general, rather than attempting to directly mirror a specific real-life issue. I won’t say always, necessarily, but usually it resulted in a stronger episode. In this case I don’t know if it was intentional to make the point more generally applicable, but I certainly think it resulted in a very strong episode.
We have no tallies going up from this episode. Next time, everybody’s gotta get high, in This Side of Paradise.
#star trek#star trek TOS#star trek the original series#star trek recaps#1.23 A Taste of Armageddon#1.23 A Taste of Armageddon Recap
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Rating: T
Word count: 4,835
Tags: becoming human, fluff and angst, but like ninety percent fluff
Summary:
After avoiding the apocalypse and the punishments of heaven and hell, Crowley and Aziraphale are looking forward to their new, quieter lives. But then Crowley's eyes start changing and Aziraphale's hair starts growing darker. More than that, they're starting to feel new sensations like hunger and tiredness.
And even more than that, as unnerving as these new changes are, what Crowley wants more than anything else is just to tell Aziraphale how he feels about him.
It starts the morning after their meal at the Ritz. Slightly groggy, but nevertheless elated at having finally spent time with Aziraphale with no real talk of heaven or hell, just their interests, how bizarre their new acquaintances were, how Aziraphale hoped they would keep in touch, how charming Crowley found Tadfield and how he strangely found himself wanting to go back and visit without the impending threat of Armageddon. They had spoken well into the early hours of the morning, talking with an ease that neither of them had ever had the luxury of exploring before. For the first time in millennia, they could just exist. It was exhilarating.
It’s in this haze of giddiness and reminiscing that Crowley first encounters his reflection. He surveys his crop of red hair, wondering whether or not he should grow it out again. He misses being able to just throw it up into a bun whenever it annoyed him and he knows Aziraphale prefers it longer anyway. He’s never said as much, but the first time they met up after Crowley had cut it shorter the angel’s nose scrunched slightly as if trying to hold back a look of disappointment. Perhaps now that things between them were so open to possibility, it wouldn’t hurt to offer a bit of additional temptation.
His eyes drift down to meet their reflected counterparts and he jumps slightly. He’s seen his face in hundreds of different lights in hundreds of different reflective surfaces for hundreds and thousands of years. He has a pretty good idea of what his eyes should look like. Except that today they’re different. The slits of his pupils are smaller and far rounder than he’s ever seen them, and the yellow surrounding them has faded, not by much, but enough that Crowley is dumbstruck by the change.
He rushes through the rest of his morning routine so that he can get Aziraphale’s opinion too, because whatever was happening was undeniably strange. Pausing only briefly to try on a darker pair of sunglasses than the ones he usually wears, he darts out of the house and speeds his Bentley through the streets of London.
Upon arriving at the bookshop, Crowley sees that it’s closed. This isn’t the strangest thing as Aziraphale has been known to close the shop for days at a time to avoid customers, but usually, the angel has a sixth sense about when it’s Crowley popping by and makes sure that the door is open for him. Unbidden, his mind vindictively flashes to the smell of smoke and roar of burning paper, to that feeling of helplessness when only two days ago he thought he’d lost the only thing he’d ever truly cared about. But he takes a deep breath and the feeling passes, though his heart is still racing. Strangely, as if to set his mind at ease, it’s just then that he hears a key scraping in the lock and the bell above the shop door tinkle.
“Crowley, I wasn’t expecting you so early. Are you alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. It’s not your lot harassing you again, is it?”
“Nah, it was nothing. I narrowly avoided a cyclist and I’m still a bit jumpy after heaven yesterday, but nothing I can’t handle.”
Aziraphale’s nose does that scrunch again, the one that tells Crowley that he doesn’t believe him.
“Well then, you’d better get inside where it’s safe,” the angel replies and Crowley’s stomach does a small thrill at Aziraphale’s hand pressed to the small of his back as he’s let in. In fact, he’s so distracted by this new daring physical contact that it takes him a moment or two to realise that Aziraphale is wearing a hat. Which is strange – he hardly ever wears hats. The last time he had seen Aziraphale in a hat that wasn’t part of a costume or disguise was the nineteenth century, which leads Crowley to suspect that him wearing an ostentatious top hat here in the twenty-first century is, in fact, a disguise.
“Bad hair day?” Crowley asks and Aziraphale’s hand flies self-consciously up to the hat.
“Yes, you could say that.” He pops into his office to start boiling the kettle on his ancient two-ring hot plate and Crowley settles down into his favourite armchair, taking a moment to breathe in the comforting scent of the place. It’s been his unofficial second haunt for as long as Aziraphale’s had it, but for whatever reason, he’s never felt more connected to it than he does now. Home, he realises as he looks around him. It feels something like a home.
Aziraphale comes back a minute or two later with two teacups and a steaming teapot on top of an ornate silver tray. The sight makes Crowley smile. The angel never does anything by half. After allowing Aziraphale to pour a cup for him, Crowley reaches for it and sits back to survey him.
“So how bad is a bad hair day if it’s making you pull out your accessories from the eighteen-hundreds?”
“Rather bad, I’m afraid,” Aziraphale replies, taking a tentative sip of his tea. “Well, not so much bad, actually, as different. Now you know that I have barely changed what I do with my appearance in six thousand years, which is why I’m a tad upset that today it’s a completely different colour.”
“Show me,” says Crowley, and realising that his demands could come off as rude, he adds, “Only if you’re comfortable with it, mind.”
“Alright, but please don’t laugh. I couldn’t even miracle it back to normal and I’ve already made an appointment with a hair salon to see what they can do about fixing it.”
“On my demonic honour,” says Crowley, smirking and placing a hand over his heart which makes Aziraphale let out a little huff of amusement. Slowly, as if trying to remove the lid on a vat of some volatile substance, Aziraphale removes his hat and Crowley has to bite back a gasp. His hair, stark white the day before, is now a dirty blonde colour.
“Oh shit,” is all Crowley can manage. It’s certainly more immediately noticeable than his eyes – after all, he only sees his eyes a few times every day. But Aziraphale… he’s always made a point to see Aziraphale as often as he can. And even when not around him, he’s all Crowley thinks about. Apart from the costume changes, the way Aziraphale looks is a constant in an ever-changing world and to see him so different, the hair so much darker, framing his face in a new way, is startling, but not altogether unwelcome.
“Is it really that bad?” He’s looking at Crowley now with a look of pleading and Crowley notices the tears forming in his eyes. Aziraphale is scared. Crowley can feel it radiating from him in waves and he realises he needs to do something about it.
“Hey, no, it’s not bad at all,” he says, setting his tea down so that he can scramble closer to the angel. “I personally think it looks great on you, but I can understand how it would be a bit of a shock to wake up like this. Want me to take a shot at a miracle?”
“Oh, would you?” Aziraphale almost whispers, relief flooding his face. “I really don’t know about such a drastic change. There’s already been so much of it this week.”
“Of course. Hold still.”
Gently, so gently it’s almost reverent, Crowley places his hands on either side of Aziraphale’s face and tries to summon up as much energy as he can, but it feels like there’s some sort of force around his hair preventing him from changing it back. He lingers for a moment, no longer trying to perform the miracle, just allowing himself a moment to feel the warmth of the angel’s flushed cheeks beneath his palms.
“Any luck?” Aziraphale asks after a moment or two, far more optimistically than Crowley would have dared ask. Crowley shakes his head and the effect is immediate. Aziraphale’s cheeks, flushed just a moment before, drain of all colour, a contrast made all the more intense by his new darker hair. He reaches up shaky hands to take Crowley’s and Crowley takes this as a sign that Aziraphale wants him to take his hands off his face and begins pulling them away. Instead, Aziraphale’s hands wrap tighter around his as he stares him.
“Crowley, you don’t think… it couldn’t be that I’ve fallen, could it?”
The thought had crossed his mind, but with the fear he sees in Aziraphale’s eyes, he knows now is not the time to voice it.
“Let’s not jump to any conclusions – it’s been a crazy few days. In any case, something weird happened to my appearance too, so if that’s the case I don’t know why it would affect both of us.”
“Oh?” says Aziraphale, still pale, but now with concern that Crowley realises is aimed at him. He pulls one of his hands free to pull off his sunglasses and Aziraphale gasps. “Crowley, your pupils are round.”
“Completely?” he asks, panicked.
“No, not quite, but they’re certainly looking far less demonic. What do you think this means? Did something perhaps go wrong while we were switching yesterday?”
“I don’t think so. Your hair would probably be redder if that was the case. I don’t know what this is and we can’t seem to miracle our way out of it. Perhaps we just try to get by for the time being and see what happens. Nothing else has changed as far as I’ve noticed.”
“No, you’re right, of course. No sense worrying about something that seems to be purely aesthetic anyway. Would you… would you come with me to the salon later, though? I so rarely let people touch my hair, let alone work with it and frankly, I’m terrified.”
“Of course,” says Crowley, giving Aziraphale’s hand a quick squeeze before jumping to his feet, collecting his tea and using a miracle to snap his armchair next to Aziraphale’s. Aziraphale looks for a moment like he might say something about this impromptu furniture rearrangement, but the moment passes and as soon as Crowley is sitting and has reached for Aziraphale’s hand again, he’s wearing that soft, contented smile that Crowley finds so beautiful. “Now, Angel, yesterday you were telling me an anecdote about borrowing Oscar Wilde’s scarf and accidentally never giving it back and we were interrupted by the bill. I definitely need to hear how this one ends. You wouldn’t actually steal something, would you? And here I thought you were beyond reproach.”
“Not on purpose!” says Aziraphale defensively. “Though I will admit there was a part of me that was glad he never asked for it again.”
Crowley laughs, listening to Aziraphale talk. It’s fun reminiscing with the angel. They alone are the only two beings in the entire universe who know what it’s been like to live on Earth from its beginning to its (happily avoided) end. Crowley wonders how he would have endured it without him – probably with much wailing and gnashing of teeth. The fact that he’s sitting here, in Aziraphale’s cosy little shop, holding his hand and tracing small circles with his thumb is a miracle he didn’t think he deserved and thus was immensely grateful for.
Having largely grown accustomed to holding Aziraphale’s hand by now, he doesn’t let go of it as they get ready to walk the few blocks to the upmarket beauty salon where Aziraphale has booked his hair appointment. After a bit of a back-and-forth, Crowley has convinced the angel to leave without the hat (“Honestly, Angel, it’s going to draw far more attention than your hair will.”) and the two of them set off down the busy London street.
Upon arriving, Aziraphale is almost immediately whisked away to have his hair shampooed and conditioned and he watches with curiosity as the angel’s expression moves from sheer terror to complete bliss. He wonders what it would be like to do that for him – to run his fingers through his hair, to pull that look of sheer relaxation and comfort from him. There’s a lot that would have to happen between them before that and he’s still not even entirely sure that Aziraphale wants that, but Crowley wants him to want that. After yesterday, the hope has become almost impossible to suppress. There had to be some significance to the soft way Aziraphale had toasted and the delighted look on his face when Crowley called him a bastard. And hadn’t they just been holding hands? Even if this was friendship, they were far past whatever the average for friendship was.
“He’s well fit, your man,” says a lady in a thick cockney accent next to Crowley, only barely startling him. Crowley briefly debates whether or not he should set the record straight, but then decides it’s not exactly lying. If anyone in the world was his man, it was Aziraphale.
“Yeah, he is,” Crowley agrees, trying and failing to stifle the smile spilling across his features.
“I don’t suppose you’ll be wanting anything done while you’re waiting? Hair bleaching is quite the process. A trim perhaps? A little manicure?”
Crowley looks down at his nails. It’s been far too long since he last painted them. The thought of a manicure sounds pretty great at this point.
“Yeah, go on,” he says, stretching out his nails. “Where do you want these?”
The nail technician, Paige, leads him over to a table with a perfect view of Aziraphale and an even better view once he’s seated in the hair stylist’s chair. Crowley locks eyes with Aziraphale’s reflection in the mirror and offers him an encouraging smile. It returns, still nervous, but with the corners of his eyes crinkled in that way that makes Crowley weak at the knees.
“Sure we can’t tempt you into getting that trim too?” Paige asks, but Crowley shakes his head.
“Planning to grow it out,” he explains and Paige nods as she sticks Crowley’s fingers in a bowl of warm water. In the mirror opposite, Aziraphale is blushing.
–
They decide to dine at another of Aziraphale’s favourite haunts that night and, for the first time in history, Crowley opens the menu.
“Crowley, you don’t mean to actually order something other than a glass of wine tonight do you?” he looks both shocked and elated. Truth be told, Crowley isn’t sure what exactly it was that prompted him to look at the meals on offer, but now that he has there is a deep pang in his stomach that seems to insist he commits to following through. The smells coming from the kitchen are amazing in a way that they haven’t ever been before and it suddenly dawns on him what must be happening.
“I think I’m hungry,” says Crowley, just as surprised as Aziraphale. “I’ve never been hungry before.”
“I think I am too, though I don’t think we’re supposed to be able to,” says Aziraphale, frowning. “I mean, of course, these assigned bodies look and feel like real bodies, but they shouldn’t behave like real bodies – at least not in terms of needs like food and rest. I don’t know what it is that’s happening to us today, Crowley, but it’s frightfully unnerving.”
Crowley glances to Aziraphale’s hair which had been almost back to his usual shade of white blonde mere hours ago but is now already starting to darken. He hopes Aziraphale doesn’t catch a glimpse of his reflection at any point tonight. He doesn’t want him to panic more than Crowley can already feel he is. He, himself, has been determined to not look at his eyes until he absolutely has to.
No, the plan for tonight is to make Aziraphale forget that anything weird is actually happening to them and to just enjoy their new freedom. No reporting back, no worries about being caught fraternising with the enemy, just the two of them, the delicious-looking steak special and the excellent bottle of wine that Aziraphale picked out. He tells Aziraphale as much and is rewarded with a room-brightening grin as a reward. Though he doesn’t know for sure yet what it is that’s going on between them, he knows enough to be sure that he’s the luckiest bastard in this restaurant.
“You know, I haven’t yet had the chance to have a good look at what they did with your nails,” says Aziraphale, and Crowley immediately offers his right hand for closer inspection. Aziraphale takes it and smiles approvingly. “Scarlet was an excellent colour choice. They look gorgeous.”
He runs his thumb gently over Crowley’s knuckles and then just… doesn’t let go. Instead, he lowers their hands to rest on the table between them while he picks up his wine with his other hand.
“Ha, nicely played, Angel,” laughs Crowley, adjusting his hand to thread his fingers through Aziraphale’s, and it’s then that Crowley realises that if he doesn’t just ask for clarification right now, he’s not going to make it through this dinner. He has to know if this is actually happening. “Look, it’s taking every bit of courage I have for me to ask this, but all the handholding, dinner at the Ritz yesterday… what are we doing here? What do you want us to be doing here? Because it’s getting to the point where there’s no going back for me. I’ve put too much of my heart into this.”
“You love me,” says Aziraphale and Crowley can’t infer anything from it. It was stated as pure fact in the same way he might point out that the sky is blue or that ducks swim.
“Yes,” Crowley agrees. “And you know that because of your love radar senses?”
“Among other things,” says Aziraphale, squeezing Crowley’s hand. “You do also go to quite extraordinary lengths to show it at times.”
“Yes well…” Crowley mumbles, feeling a blush creeping into his neck.
“I realise that demons don’t sense love the same way we do, but you must be able to sense other emotions.”
“Disgust, anger, envy, fear – basically all of your garden variety negative emotions.”
“Well, take fear for example. What is the most afraid you can ever remember me being?” He’s looking at Crowley expectantly and Crowley’s memories immediately flashback to a tartan thermos and the absolute terror in Aziraphale’s eyes as he handed it over.
“The Holy Water heist – when you got the water for me instead. You were angry too.”
“Of course I was,” says Aziraphale. “You, a demon, had made an asinine plan to go after the one thing that could properly hurt you. Even a small amount of it could have dissolved you completely. That’s not just discorporation, Crowley. That’s non-existence. That’s your last moments filled with pain and agony beyond imagining and then just you no longer being there, with no way to get to you, no way to ever see you again. The thought terrified me. It still terrifies me.”
Aziraphale’s grip around Crowley’s hand is so tight that his knuckles are turning white, but Crowley barely notices it because it’s suddenly all falling into place.
“Why, Crowley, do you think that the most terrifying moment of my life would be handing you that thermos full of pure holy water?”
“Because you love me,” says Crowley, his mind struggling to come to terms with the words he’s hearing. “Holy shit, Aziraphale, you love me?”
A warmth unlike any he’s ever known spreads through his chest as the meaning of what Aziraphale just said fully sinks in. Aziraphale is smiling, beaming at Crowley now and it only serves to make Crowley’s heart race faster.
“With all my heart.”
“That’s… wow,” Crowley replies, completely at a loss for words. “That’s good then.”
“I’d say so. And I’d also say that if two people felt romantical about each other, it would be rather silly for them to not pursue that, not so?”
“Truly idiotic,” says Crowley, lifting Aziraphale’s hand slowly, hesitantly before pressing the softest kiss to each knuckle and it’s unfortunately right at that moment that the waiter arrives with their starter course, somewhat cutting through the intensity of the moment.
Crowley has a proper three-course meal for the first time in his life, and though it’s as delicious as Aziraphale has been loudly raving all these years, it has nothing on the angel’s smile and knowing that it was Crowley that put it there.
–
Both Crowley and Aziraphale are exhausted by the time dinner is over, which is a completely new experience for them. Though Crowley chooses to sleep at night, it’s only ever because he finds it pleasant. Their bodies aren’t supposed to feel fatigued. After all, the forces of good and evil never slept – their respective bureaus couldn’t afford them to either.
Unless that’s what heaven and hell were trying to do now – weaken them so that they would be easier to capture again. Best not to think about that until morning.
“We’ll take a cab to my flat,” says Crowley. “I’ve at least got a bed.”
“Good thinking,” says Aziraphale, yawning loudly as Crowley hails one down.
After giving the cab driver the address, he settles back into his seat and tries not to melt too much when Aziraphale rests his head on Crowley’s shoulder.
“Love you,” he says
“Love you too,” Crowley replies, his heart overflowing.
“It’s nice to be able to finally say it in words.”
“Agreed.”
As Crowley begins drifting off, he glances at the eyes of the cabbie in the rear-view mirror and, for a moment, is filled with a flash of gut-punching familiarity though he can’t quite place who they belong to. A heartbeat later, he finds himself in the wide-open expanse where, days before, time had stopped long enough for Aziraphale and him to speak to Adam. It looked the same except that now it was just the two of them.
“Crowley, you’re here too,” says Aziraphale, sounding relieved. “Did you do something? The last thing I remember is you saying ‘I love you’ and then the next I was here. What do you think it means?”
“I have no idea, but I’m glad you’re here too.” He reaches for Aziraphale’s hand and the two of them begin making their way slowly through the powdery white sand. They manage to make it about ten meters before a loud voice rings out over the landscape.
“Aziraphale, Crowley, where are you going?”
Crowley’s heart plummets. The last time he had heard that voice was when he was being cast out of heaven. Perhaps Aziraphale had fallen after all then. He glances at Aziraphale, who is sheet white and completely motionless.
“Relax, Crowley,” says God, gently. “No one is falling today – at least not in the traditional sense. You’re probably wondering why I’ve brought you here.”
“Yes, the thought had crossed my mind,” says Aziraphale with bravado that Crowley knows he’s borrowing. Aziraphale’s fear is so overwhelming, it’s making Crowley forget to feel his own.
“Look, Your Lordship, if it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer if you got the punishment over with quickly. It’s been a long, strange day for us.”
“That’s precisely what I brought you here to talk to you about. Had it not been for you two, our final, decisive war would be underway as we speak. As it stands, it would appear we are still in a time of peace. Now, both sides are noticeably put out by this, as I’m sure you picked up on while cleverly evading their punishments. I, however, do not share these same frustrations.”
“You don’t?” asks Aziraphale carefully and the voice of God laughs softly.
“No, I don’t. It means that I will have to wait a bit longer to wrap everything up, but time has never worked quite the same for me, so this is hardly a problem. More than anything, I am not angry because I understand why you did it. You love this planet as you love each other and love that pure, love that all-consuming that it would lead you to face down the powers of heaven and hell to preserve it, deserves a reward, not punishment. So I’m giving you what you want. What you’ve both secretly desired all these years.”
Crowley and Aziraphale exchange a glance as they squeeze each other’s hands.
“I’m giving you the chance to be human.”
The gravity of these words takes a moment to sink in, but as they do Crowley’s heart swells. He won’t be a demon anymore. He won’t be particularly good, sure, but he won’t be expected to be being of pure evil anymore either. He could just be. The thought is overwhelming.
God laughs again.
“I see that I have no objections to this plan. It is decided then. When you leave this place, both of you will be completely human and neither heaven nor hell will be able to stake a claim on your existence more than they would with any other human. You will be free from scrutiny on both sides, free to carry on with your lives as normal.”
Crowley feels like he’s floating. This all seems too good to be true, and yet he feels no need to doubt it. Aziraphale still looks like he has his misgivings, however.
“Is something the matter, Aziraphale?” God asks.
“Well, Lord, it’s not so much that something is the matter as much as it is confusion. You see, I can’t seem to sense Crowley’s love anymore. I could up until a second ago, but now there’s nothing. Yet somehow, I still feel heaven’s power flowing through me. Are we… are we still going to be able to perform miracles as humans?”
There’s a sudden crash of thunder, despite the sky being clear and when Crowley and Aziraphale recover from their shock, they see before them a flaming sword, identical to the one Aziraphale used to have.
“Many years ago, I entrusted one of these to an angel without much thought or hesitation. Barely a few months later, that angel had given it away to two brand-new humans so that they might have a way to protect and provide for themselves as they navigated the world and learned what it was to be alive. That’s precisely what I am doing now. Your miracles will help you as you navigate the world as new humans. All I ask is that in addition to using this power as an aid for yourselves, you will try to do good with it too.”
“We’ll try our utmost, won’t we, Crowley?”
Crowley is just staring at the ground, overwhelmed with emotion.
“Thank you,” he finally manages to say.
“You’re welcome, Crowley. Now, go in peace and enjoy your freedom.”
For a moment, nothing happens as they stare out along the barren landscape, but then the vision fades to black and Crowley is warm and more comfortable than he’s ever been before. He’s asleep, he knows it, but it has never felt so good, so perfect and so all-consuming. He’s not sure he ever wants to wake up again. But then he realises that the unfamiliar weight around his waist is Aziraphale’s arm and his heart surges. Slowly, trying his hardest not to disturb the angel, he turns to face him and is surprised to find that the Aziraphale looking back at him has dark hair.
Completely human, just like she promised.
He reaches out to stroke some of the soft hair away from his forehead and as he does, Aziraphale’s eyes flutter open.
“Good morning,” says Aziraphale. “I do believe this is my first time waking up.”
“It suits you.” Crowley is grinning. He can’t help it. He can’t believe how lucky he is.
“You’re very sweet,” says Aziraphale, then, with a small start, he opens his eyes fully. “Crowley, goodness, your eyes are human. And brown.”
“Really?” he asks. “Do they look alright? I mean, do I suit them? Should I just keep on wearing the sunglasses?”
“They’re beautiful,” he says, pressing a kiss to the tip of Crowley’s nose.
“Your hair is dark brown too,” says Crowley and seeing the panic on Aziraphale’s face, he grins. “It makes you look devastatingly handsome.”
“Well, I suppose I’ll have to take your word for it,” laughs Aziraphale. “What is the time anyway?”
Crowley reaches over to his bedside table for his phone.
“It’s quarter past six.”
“Well, that’s far too early to be awake.” And, snuggling closer to Crowley, he falls asleep again.
Crowley lies there, listening to Aziraphale’s deep breathing, intoxicated by the scent of the shampoo the salon used on him the day before. He has no idea what he did to deserve this, how after all the years of pain and torment, this is how things have turned out, but he will never stop being grateful for it.
Not even five minutes later, Crowley falls asleep in Aziraphale’s arms.
#ineffable husbands#ineffable husbands fic#ineffable husbands fanfic#aziraphale x crowley#crowley x aziraphale#good omens#yay I wrote another thing#I'm on a roll#long post
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Day 9: time travel
Morgan had possessed their ability for as long as they could remember. It wasn’t a particularly useful ability as all they could do was visit any place in time and watch because any action they took had no effect on the timeline.
Whenever Morgan was in the past, they were invisible. And that just meant they had something similar to millions of films on demand (or an unlimited resource for whenever a history project was due).
It was fun, until they discovered the existence of immortals. Then it became even more enjoyable.
**
Morgan was twelve when they first spotted them and was trying alcohol for the first time in a Roman pub. They had pinched some watered-down wine from a table as they entered; sipping the wine (that tasted of honey and herbs), they watched the ancient Romans for a few hours. The pub was quite crowded but, as they were sitting on a stall at the corner of the bar (and was in possession of weird powers), no one paid them any attention.
Growing bored, Morgan began to contemplate heading home before a strange man entered the pub. His red hair, decorated with a gaudy laurel, and black robes made him stand out. As did the fact that he loudly ordered something “drinkable”. The slightly hostile stares made Morgan think that the man was a tourist that had offended somehow.
The man sat alone for a minute at the bar, not far from Morgan, until another customer piped up from a nearby table. “Crowley!” someone said, and Morgan looked over to see a man all in white go and sit next to ‘Crowley’.
They started talking to each other; Morgan couldn’t hear their conversation over the general murmur of the pub and they weren’t that interested in it anyway. Jumping around history had taught them that most people were strange and listening in just made them stranger.
Not long after, the pair left and Morgan heard them talking about oysters as they walked past. As Morgan prepared to go home, they thought the incident was mildly interesting but, really, the colosseum was so much more entertaining.
**
A year later, Morgan made the ground-breaking discovery. They were in St James’ Park during the 60s… the 1860s that is. Hanging out in the park was one of their favourite things to do, even when the weather didn’t really allow for it. The ducks were fun to feed in whatever time period Morgan decided to visit.
Victorian clothing was Morgan’s favourite thing to wear despite the fact that they had no need to blend in. They used their power for fun and what was more fun than a top hat and tails or a large dress and corset.
And the frilly umbrellas were a lot more functional than the flimsy plastic used in the present day.
Morgan was feeding the ducks when they heard a hushed conversation grow closer. Looking to their left, they saw two men standing side-by-side and Morgan froze. The man in the white suit was very familiar and, despite the change in style, they also recognised the man in black as Crowley.
Maths wasn’t Morgan’s strong suit, but they were pretty sure a person couldn’t live for 2000 years. Staring in disbelief, they tried to rationalise what they were seeing. Possible, eerily similar, descendants? Morgan thought as they edged closer to listen to the conversation.
Crowley was talking about ears and ducks while the other man stared down at a slip of paper in horror. “Out of the question!” The man-in-white said, crumpling up the piece of paper.
“Why not?” Crowley whined. Morgan watched on in confusion as the conversation turned to suicide pills and fraternising. Without context, their conversation made little sense. All Morgan learned was that the other man was called Angel (or, at least, was called that by Crowley).
As the pair stormed off in different directions, Angel threw the piece of paper into the pond… which promptly burst into flames.
Morgan remained in the park for a while as they tried to regather their wits.
**
Morgan was experimenting with their powers, trying to see how far they could go back. It resulted in them hanging out in some desert among a crowd of people and watching the ark, Noah’s ark, being built.
It was amazing, especially seeing all the animals (though the presence of unicorns was a bit mystifying). Unfortunately, Morgan saw Angel at the front of the crowd. That meant Crowley couldn’t be too far and the two of them just made this whole time-travelling thing way more confusing than it had to be.
As expected, Crowley did show up and pushed through the crowd to reach Angel. Feeling a little reckless, Morgan followed so they could hear their conversation again. The two appeared less familiar with each other than they did at St James’ Park.
Angel was telling Crowley about how God was planning to flood everyone (well, the locals). Morgan listened with interest as Angel told the familiar story about the flood, the ark, and the rainbow as it was about to happen. It was all very strange, but Morgan was beginning to figure out what the pair may actually be.
After the unicorn ran off (which did explain their apparent extinction) and the rain started to fall, Morgan left rather quickly to avoid the upcoming flood.
**
It took two years for Morgan to see the celestial beings again. Well, possible celestials as that was their strongest theory. Why they were on earth, Morgan hadn’t a clue.
Standing in the Globe, Morgan ate some grapes as they watched an early production of Hamlet. The place was practically empty which Morgan thought was completely understandable. They had hoped that seeing it would make studying the script in the present less unbearably dull but it seems they were wrong. Morgan would have to go forward a few years to when it actually became popular.
Just as they were turning to leave, Morgan noticed him: Angel. Unsurprisingly, he wasn’t alone for long as Crowley soon entered the Globe (who once again had a new hairstyle).
Their conversation was as unusual as always but Morgan was slowly puzzling it out. The mentions of temptations and miracles and Hell led to Morgan concluding that they were looking at an angel and a demon: an angel and demon who worked together…for convenience apparently.
Morgan also found out why hamlet became a major hit before they went home.
**
Turning seventeen made Morgan a bit of a thrill-seeker, which is why they visited London in 1941 during one of the worst nights of the blitz. It wasn’t like they were able to die in the past anyway.
They wandered around the empty streets and looked at all the blacked-out buildings, thinking about all the people who were too terrified to sleep. Studying history from books would never be enough to understand the feelings of the people who had lived through or died in these terrible times.
Morgan was regretting their decision and was planning to leave before seeing even one bomb until they saw Crowley running across the street in front of them. He appeared frantic, so Morgan chose to follow.
Panting for breath, Morgan was thankful when they reached a church and Crowley paused outside the entrance. Crowley also took a couple of deep breaths before pushing open the Church door and gingerly walking inside. Morgan could hear him mumbling “ow” repeatedly under his breath as they approached the front of the church where Angel was being held at gunpoint.
Ah, Morgan thought, that’s why he was looking so agitated.
Despite the literal Nazis threatening them, Morgan watched on as the two immortals had their own conversation about Crowley’s name. They became a bit worried about the incoming bomb (as Morgan could figure out what Crowley was intending while the Nazis thought it was an obvious bluff) but they really wanted to see what happened.
The explosion was daunting but Morgan barely felt any heat or pressure. When the smoke cleared, they were standing in the same space and so were Angel and Crowley. Their conversation was amusing as, despite his arguments, Crowley was way too nice for a demon; there was no real reason to save the books except to make Angel happy.
As Morgan went home, they hoped that the two of them remained together throughout the rest of time.
**
Really, Morgan should have known that there was the possibility of running into the two immortals in the present; it just had never crossed their mind before.
The week leading up to their eighteenth birthday was strange: there was the discovery of Atlantis, the barely-avoided-nuclear-Armageddon and then waking up on Sunday a year older to see a snobby old woman sitting at the end of her bed.
The woman was nicely dressed in a formal skirt and coat. She had a full-face of make-up and her hair was in a strict up-do. She scoffed, “I cannot believe someone like you was chosen.” Her voice was quiet as if she wanted Morgan to just catch her words so she could deny them if Morgan called her out. The woman cleared her throat and said, “My name is Linda. I am a chosen one of two generations ago and I am here to explain your time-jumping abilities.”
Morgan was tempted to say No thanks. I’ve managed to figure them out in the eight years I’ve had them but then Linda went on the say that she had secured a lunch reservation at the Ritz and that was too good to refuse.
The Ritz was very posh and Linda was looking at Morgan’s attire with disgust. “Elbow off the table please, and are you even listening?”
“Not really,” Morgan said. The part about a few people in each generation being gifted this ability was interesting; the bit about the responsibility of finding new chosen ones and guiding them was obvious because why else would Linda go all the way to Islington to find Morgan; and all the technicalities about the invisibility and not-dying when in the past was something they worked out years ago.
Linda sighed and pinched her nose with two fingers, “I am trying to warn you about the danger that comes with your power. It is all too easy to remain in the past for months or even years which makes coming back much more difficult.”
“So, just don’t do that?”
“You are not listening. The longer you stay in the past, it will be harder to remember when in the present to come back to and if you mess that up, you can ruin the timeline.”
Morgan was growing annoyed by the condescension, “Why would I stay in the past for long? It’s fun, yeah, but I can’t interact with anyone. And isn’t this something I should have been told ages ago?”
Picking at her food, Morgan listened to Linda’s lecture with half an ear. In a haughty manner, Linda said, “Most people are not as reckless as you and would be careful and wait when they discovered they could visit the past. Anyway, just listen to me. I am older, more experienced and I know more about the world than you ever will.”
“Okay,” Morgan said, though something else had caught her attention. Two men were dining at a nearby table: Angel and Crowley. Unfortunately, they were too far away to hear anything but the pair seemed to be toasting something. Happy that they were still together, it took a second for Morgan to remember that they weren’t currently invisible to the outside world so they quickly tore their gaze away.
Focussing back on Linda, Morgan said, “Hey, did you know that angels and demons exist and live here on earth?”
“Don’t be silly,” Linda replied, looking at Morgan like a weary carer who couldn’t care less about their child’s imagination.
“I’m done,” Morgan said as they stood up and strolled away from Linda. They walked past Angel and Crowley and, while everyone else in the restaurant was watching Morgan with slight interest, the pair seemed too wrapped up in their own bubble and was ignorant to what was going on around them.
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Good Omens: Ep 1
A chronological list of my thoughts and rambles whilst watching.
· ‘It starts as it will end with a garden and an apple.’ And it does.
· All of Crowley’s togas etc show a leg. Aziraphale’s never do.
· Crowley’s eyes are all snake in the garden of Eden. By Noah’s Ark they’re human snake.
· ‘Obviously, you’re a demon, it’s what you do.’ That should be… disgust? But it isn’t.
· ‘Best not to speculate’ says Aziraphale - to Aziraphale. And the way he says ‘ineffable’ - FFS Aziraphale.
· Crowley looks like he’s eying up the angel, turns out he’s just looking for the sword. Crowley’s delight at ‘I gave it away!’ is delicious.
· ‘I don’t think you can do the wrong thing.’ Crowley don’t lie, you sod. ‘A demon can get into a lot of trouble for doing the right thing’ - meaning, in this universe, demons and angels have free will. Not just Crowley and Aziraphale - all of them.
· Crowley sidles up to Aziraphale BEFORE Aziraphale puts his wing up.
· ‘All hail Satan.’ ‘Er, hi guys.’ That, and that ridiculous walk, is all you really need to know about Crowley.
· Ligur’s eyes change colour with his chameleon. Hastur wears a wig on top of a toad - fuck knows why.
· Crowley’s signature is a sigil similar to his snake tattoo.
· ‘Centuries. Triumph. Glorious tool. Yeah…’ Oh Crowley.
· When given the antichrist Crowley sounds like he’s trying not to throw up.
· Aziraphale looks about as unhappy at seeing Gabriel in the modern day as he did seeing Crowley for the first time in Eden. Gabriel, you fuck, so sniffy about food but you like tailors in Bond Street - you wanker.
· The head chattering nun has a sigil of Lucifer on a necklace.
· ‘Fathers complicate the process for everybody. We’ll let him know when to come up…’ Does the nun think Mr Young is Satan in human form?
· ‘I expected funny eyes…’ Poor Crowley! ‘Do you look like your daddywaddykins?!’ ‘He doesn’t.’ Crowley has seen Lucifer of course.
· ‘Mr President I have the honour sir to report myself the father of a regular y-chromosomed son.’ is the most Republican thing I have ever heard.
· ‘All lines to London are currently busy.’ And whose fault is that then?!
· Terry Pratchett’s hat is on the hat stand of Aziraphale’s shop.
· ‘As if Armageddon was a cinematographic show you wished to sell in as many countries as possible.’ Oh irony.
· 1793 - Aziraphale has no idea whether it was Heaven or Hell who augmented the Reign of Terror in France but he remembers lunch and crepes.
· The Bentley’s plate is NIATRUC - curtain backwards. Not sure why?
· Apparently, Aziraphale eats and Crowley doesn’t, just all out stares at him. Then - Withnail like - demands copious amounts of alcohol.
· Look, Aziraphale, Chateaneuf du Pape is amazing. I’ve drunk it. But wine peaks, and falls to vinegar. Your cases from 1921 are gonna taste pretty sour when poured in a glass nearly 100 years later.
· ‘Get thee behind me foul fiend!’ Crowley doesn’t even flinch, he knows Aziraphale doesn’t mean it in the least - ‘After you…’ - proves him right.
· First time Crowley takes his glasses off he’s shit-faced. Is Crowley self-conscious about his eyes?
· Crowley seems like he’s taking the piss about composers who are in heaven vs those in hell, but it really pains Aziraphale and later Gabriel and Sandflerflerwtfhisname’s words hint Crowley is right.
· Hastur proves that hell is a bastard (or at least he is) by burning things just for the fuck of it. Only the nuns are surprised. (Maybe shout out to Lovecraft et al and how if you were a cultist of Cthulhu your prize was he’d eat you last.)
· ‘The evil influences, that’s all gonna be me…’ Crowley you are such an idiot and so thirsty - get out. Aziraphale you’re no better - you’re an even bigger idiot. Please stop. You’re embarrassing yourself. Also you both make ‘thwarting’ sound like a dirty word.
· ‘We do it right he won’t be evil. … Or good. He’ll just be normal.’ Crowley doesn’t like Heaven but it’s clear he likes Hell even less. (‘Sauntered downwards’, possibly for the aesthetic or some shit, now has Regrets but can’t tell anyone or even admit ‘cos he’s Too Cool For School.)
· Aziraphale when he says ‘Godfathers!’ and ‘Well I’ll be damned!’ like the idiot floof he is and the worst Crowley does is grin and poke, ‘It’s not that bad once you get used to it…’ Then Aziraphale wakes up from the flirting and suddenly worries about theological complications.
· They’re both out of date here: Crowley tries to be evil Mary Poppins, that’s … originally 1930s I think but maybe set earlier. Aziraphale tries to be -idk - generic Farmer Giles from 1750. Proving Crowley is still too fast for Aziraphale even if Humanity outdoes them both.
· I love the way Crowley and Aziraphale go on up/down escalators to report to their respective head offices. Also the fact they strode in together.
· ‘Fantastically evil’ ‘Killed anyone yet?’ ‘Uhhhhhhh...’ Both Crowley and Aziraphale are more human than they are divine or hellish. Crowley just knows and understands this first because he’s the smarter of the two. By a nanometer.
· Gabriel, you’re horrible but I want your eyeballs. Most contacts are opaque and so look shit. Lenses that are like gels you put over lights? So much better. Give me.
· Aziraphale’s paper on the bus isn’t The Observer (UK newspaper) but The Celestial Observer. (Headline: ‘Good Deeds Pay Off For Local Man…’)
· Hell has de-motivational posters.
· Hell hound’s cell is number 2549. Translated into letters that’s BEDI or YDI. So, the Hound’s first name is Beady Eye or Widey Eye. Aziraphale should be more annoyed Crowley never mentioned a hell hound, but no, he’s chill and just ‘won’t people notice?!’
· ‘Something could happen to him. I’m saying you could kill him.’ Crowley says this because he know Heaven has killed children before (see Ep3). Aziraphale is mildly horrified because he still believes Heaven is good somehow, despite the historical evidence.
· ‘In fact - I could entertain!’ Apparently everything after that was improvised. How dare you.
· Crowley’s watch is so fucking extra.
· ‘Lovely big helly hell hound’ - Crowley? your 10 is showing.
· When you first see the Them, Pepper has a stick sword, Brian a paper crown, Wensleydale is by twig scales, and Adam sits on a makeshift throne beneath a skull.
· Pepper’s bike - a girl’s bike - is not the bike she rides later (Ep5) That’s Adam’s bike. They swapped.
· ‘I’m to blame they never check up?!’ Crowley I love that you never take responsibility for anything.
· ‘Not you - I know what you smell like!!!!!’ From this we learn that Aziraphale has a barber, and that Crowley knows what Aziraphale smells like whatever the circumstance. (And that they are both are fucking idiots but whatever.)
· When Aziraphale says Crowley lies ‘cos ‘that’s what you do’ he is so toeing the party line - he doesn’t believe it at all and Crowley knows it. Also Crowley is legit terrified about the whole End Times thing. Aziraphale is trying to be less terrified and when he can’t manage that, pretending to be less terrified. Proving once again that demons are more honest - about their feelings at any rate…
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Ineffable Fictober 2019 #4 - Reversal
(Other fills can be found in the tag or on AO3)
“Excuse us for a moment.” Aziraphale smiles tightly at the motley assemblage in front of him, which includes Beelzebub, Gabriel, and the Antichrist.
He pulls Crowley aside. The demon is wearing a truly ridiculous hat, topped off by a black snake with a red underbelly. They remind him of shoes he’s seen on Earth, and he wonders what Crowley would look like wearing them. Would they accentuate his already lascivious swagger? How much more height would they give him, as he tilts Aziraphale’s chin up with those long, elegant fingers?
“I assume this is the part where we talk about whatever’s happening. Or not.” Crowley says curtly. He’s pacing around Aziraphale, restless and impatient.
Aziraphale coughs. “Yes, of course. All this is part of the Great Plan. Why isn’t it proceeding?”
Crowley glowers at the other angel and demon. They smirk and wave at him and Aziraphale from where they hover protectively behind the Antichrist.
“I’m aware it’s because of them, you dolt, but why? And how do we get things back on track?”
“That is a very good question. One that deserves more exploration.” Bollocks. Aziraphale knows that tone, because he’s heard it come out of his mouth on more than occasion when he has no fucking idea what to do and needs to stall.
But it is an out, so he’ll take it. “Perhaps we need to start an interdepartmental committee, explore what options we have available before we do something truly drastic. After all, Armageddon only happens once.”
“Brilliant. Splendid.” Crowley claps his hands together, pleased that they’ve decided on a course of action. Aziraphale could swear that’s relief he sees in the demon’s eyes, and it does something to his chest. (Never mind that he’s not actually corporal at this time; he feels it anyways.)
“I suppose we’d better get started. Putting the committee together, I mean. Could take a while to hash out all the things we need to consider.”
Crowley nods. “Right. So where do we do this? Hardly seems appropriate to have this sort of meeting up- or downstairs.”
Aziraphale smiles. “Can I entice you to one of the restaurants at Selfridges?”
Crowley lifts his eyebrow. “Seems awfully close to temptation for an angel.” But, Aziraphale notices, he doesn’t say no.
“I assure you, there is very much a difference.” He’s written reams of memos explicating the nuances.
“Tell me more, then.” Crowley holds out his arm.
Aziraphale takes it. “I’d be glad to.”
—
After a short conversation, Aziraphale and Crowley wink away from the airfield.
“Did we win?” Adam asks. “We’re still here.”
Gabriel looks at Beelzebub. Zie is still holding the tire iron from the Bentley, which zie lowers. He puts down his flaming sword.
“Honestly, I’m not sure. But it looks like we’ve gotten a break from both sides.” He smiles at Beelzebub, who returns it.
“The world is safe, for now,” Zie says. “I suggest we take advantage of that.”
Finally, the airfield is empty, and it’s just the two of them. Hesitantly, Gabriel puts his arm around Beelzebub’s shoulders. Zie does not pull away, and in fact leans into him. It’s nicer than he ever could have imagined.
“Did we do good today?” Zie asks.
“I honestly don’t know. But we’re still here. That has to count for something, right?”
Zie puts an arm around his waist. “I’d like to think so.”
—
(This is the restaurant I was thinking of. Selfridges must be huge.)
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A Strange Magic Excerpt
Here’s a scene of the first chapter from my WIP, Strange Magic.
Maybe it was insensitive, or maybe a little stupid, but Amantha Waller spent the first night of the apocalypse at a mortal’s Halloween party.
If you didn’t know anything about the impending doom of armageddon, then you would probably think that she, and the other two dozen witches crashing Craig Erwick’s rager, were heartless, and probably very lonely. If you did know about the impending doom of armageddon, then this decision didn’t sound so strange. After all, the end of the world had been stopped five times before in the last three thousand years, and the savior was being called upon in just a few days.
Besides, the party-crashing hadn’t even been her idea. Her older brother, Cain, had shown up at her doorway at nine o’clock with a juul between his teeth and a fake stethoscope around his neck. He, just like the prior year, was outfitted in a sexy nurse costume, and had persuaded her to wear a vintage witch costume (not ironic at all) with a pointy hat and broom and everything. And then they, joined by friends Eran and Sinclair, left for the party a few blocks from Sermyce, their school.
Cain and Eran had disappeared an hour ago, leaving Amantha and Sinclair alone in the kitchen to be ogled by future frat boys dressed in dumb costumes such as “Nudist on strike,” made clear by the sign hanging around his neck. Ignoring them, they watched at the chaos surrounding them. Beer pong in the dining room, Never-Have-I-Ever by the coffee table, and god knows what upstairs.
“They’re going to notice we snuck out,” said Amantha, sipping on her spiked Hag’s Brew punch.
“Who cares?” Sinclair shrugged, costumed in Slytherin robes. “It’s not like we’re the only kids from Sermyce here. See—!” She pointed to a group in the corner of the living room. “Polly and Geoff are here. Candace and Taylor, too. Oh, look! Marian came. When did she dye her hair? Wasn’t it black in class today?”
Amantha’s eyes widened as she scanned the house, stopping at a small group by the stairs and focused in on red hair and a short, white dress. “Is that Stacy?”
“Stacy? At a party? Doubtful.” Sinclair laughed, looking closer, and then abruptly stopped. “Oh, shit! That’s Stacy fucking Blankenship! Am I in the right universe right now?”
Anastasia Blankenship, or Stacy, as she was better known by, had been Amantha’s arch-nemesis since their first year at Sermyce when a harmless game of Truth or Dare got out of hand during a sleep over. Ever since then, she and Stacy had competed for everything. Top grades, favoritism from teachers, even stupid things like getting the last bag of each other’s chips from the vending machine. And of course, the Sermyce Elder Board chosen position of Samhain speaker for the holiday festivities that next day.
Thinking about tomorrow’s assembly only made her blood boil, and whenever she saw Stacy, she could only think about how she had cheated her way into being chosen to deliver the speech.
“I don’t understand.” Amantha sighed, staring as Stacy tipped her head back laughing at her roommate, Lily-Rose’s joke. “Why is she getting trashed at a party the night before Samhain? I mean, the lengths she went to so she could deliver the damned speech, and now this?”
“Yeah, she’s worse than Satan,” said Sinclair flatly.
Amantha gulped the rest of her drink, then tossed her plastic cup into the overfull trash can across the room. “I know, I know. I’m insufferable. But she took it too far with the speech—I mean, she took my voice from me! Who does that?”
“Look, Amantha, either you can keep complaining about the injustice of it all, or you can get off your ass and do something to make it right.”
“Principal Becraft will never listen,” she said.
“That’s not what I said.” Sinclair jumped off the counter to face her. “I’m saying that we teach her a lesson ourselves. Cut out the middle man.”
“So, what? We hex her or something?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what we should do,” she agreed, taking a handful of chips from the bowl.
Amantha laughed. “We can’t just hex her. You know the rules. Absolutely no jinxing or hexing allowed outside of school lessons. If we got caught, or if Stacy reported us, we could get detention until graduation.”
“Stacy is a lot of things, but she’s no snitch,” she said. “She deals with her own shit, and so should you.”
She shook her head, taking an orange frosted cupcake from the snack table. Amantha watched as Stacy stood and made her way in their direction, angel wings bouncing behind her. She raised her eyebrows at them as she refilled her cup with tap water from the sink.
“What are you two staring at?” she asked, her voice saccharine sweet.
“Oh, just a conniving, two-faced twat, is all,” said Amantha.
Stacy turned and took a sip of her water, rolling her eyes. “Sticks and stones, Waller. The only one you’re hurting with those insults is your cerebrum. You should really give it a rest sometime. It works hard enough with that mediocre spell casting you do. Don’t want to trigger any migraines. Did you know that stress can be fatal for the weak-minded?”
“If you think so low of me then why did you feel the need to literally take my voice from me during the speech auditions, Stacy?” she asked. “Or are does my ‘mediocre spell casting’ threaten you after all?”
“Are you accusing me of something that warrants expulsion, Waller?” Stacy covered her agape mouth with a melodramatic palm.
“Please, Stacy.” She scoffed. “I felt fine all day. Then I just happen to lose my voice? I don’t think so.”
“We live in a strange, strange world,” said Stacy.
“Not that strange,” she disagreed.
Stacy didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, “I like your costume. Very cute. Did you steal it from my ten year old sister’s closet? I think she wore the exact same one two years ago. Hat and all.”
“Did you find your costume in the bargain bin at Party City?”
“Alright ladies! How about we cool down, yes?” Sinclair interrupted. She tugged on Amantha wrist, but she stayed where she was.
Stacy laughed. “Really, Waller. What are you going to do to me? Report me?”
“I was thinking something a little bit more exciting than that,” said Amantha with a shrug. “I don’t know, I mean, I’ve always been a believer in the eye-for-an-eye punishment. Reporting you seems like letting you off the hook, right?”
“So you’re going to steal my voice before the assembly tomorrow?”
“No, you’d be expecting that,” she said. “I was thinking maybe turning you into a rat. Maggot? Maybe a tapeworm.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Well, which is it then?”
Amantha laughed. “It’s not called a surprise for nothing, Anastasia.”
Stacy paused, then began to whisper something unintelligible with her eyes closed. She opened them and smiled. “I can’t wait to see what you decide on. Now enjoy that cupcake, Waller.”
With that, she strut off back to her staircase.
Amantha looked down at her cupcake, now wiggling with large, brownish worms.
She let out a scream as she dropped the cupcake onto the floor and jumped back onto the counter. “I fucking hate that girl.”
“Tainted space shall be empty space. Mess is no mess at all. With my breath, rid this mess beneath us all. Tainted space is now empty space,” Sinclair whispered, her words fast, as she clung onto her charm bracelet.
Risking a glance, relief washed over her as the rotting cupcake vanished.
“Thank you,” said Amantha.
“No problem.” Sinclair readjusted her robes. “So. What’ll it be? Pretend this all never happened? Or make her regret ever bad thing she’s ever done to you?”
Amantha looked back at Stacy, now whispering into Nisha’s ear, tuning out the non-unique rap music and weighing her options. She could either a) report Stacy to the school administration and get ignored, b) do nothing, or c) listen to Sinclair and teach Stacy a lesson with a harmless hex.
Hexing did seem like the best option. And the most fun.
She turned to Sinclair and grinned. “Tell Cain and Eran to meet me in the alchemy lab. Witching hour. We’ve got a witch to hex.”
@lady-redshield-writes @dreamwishing @aschenink
#my writing#writeblr#chapter excerpt#excerpt#wip: strange magic#my wip#amantha waller#sinclair burakgazi#stacy blankenship
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Song a day for 2016
Cool Guys don't look at explosions. Lonely island
Armageddon-Vox
High In Church-Trevor Moore.
Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny
Zelda with Lyrics- Brental Floss
You're not the boss of me now-They might be Giants
Boys and Girls LMC
Superman vs Goku ERB
Starlight Starshine Steam powered Giraffe
Craig Stephen Lynch
Clint Eastwood Gorillaz
Gimme Chocolate Baby Metal
Roundtable Rival Lindsey Stirling
Time Warp Rocky Horror Picture Show
I'm not okay (I promise) My Chemical Romance.
Angry white boy polka Weird Al
Almost Human Voltaire.
Martin Luther King vs Ghandi ERB
Batman/Xmen animated openings
Somewhere Over The Rainbow/Wonderful World IZ
Carry on my wayward son-kansas
Grey And Blue-Brave and bold
Share the one world- One Piece
God Thinks-Voltaire
This is war- 30 seconds to mars
March of the Inmates- Psychonauts
I wupped batman's ass
Legal Assassin-Repo the genetic opera.
D-City Rock PSG
Ready Steady Go Larc en Ciel
Devil went down to Georgia- CDB
I wanna rock- Twisted Sister
Polkamon- Weird Al
I can't stop Laughing- Joker
Teen Titans, Japanese version, english translation- Beast Boy
Shoot All Your Problems Away-Tomska
Steven Universe full theme-Steven and the crystal gems
Oh No you didn't
I don't love you-MCR
Heartbeat-2pm
Killed by Love-Alice Cooper
How can I not love you
Nothing-The Script
Classic Rock tune- Stephen Lynch
Breakeven- The Script
Musical Suicide- Tomska
Hallelujah- Rufus Wainwright
Only my heart talking-Alice cooper
Knights in white satin
Only you-Joker
Can't smile without you- Barry manilow +Pokemon themes
Turn Back the clock- Steam powered giraffe.
My Immortal -Evanescense
I need some sleep- Eels
On my own- Les Miserables
Feathery Wings- Voltaire
Ghost of you- My Chemical romance
Hell is living without you-alice cooper
If you ever come back- the script
love stinks- adam sandler
Youth-Daughter
Talk you down- The script
Somebody Kill me please- Adam Sandler
Owee- Voltaire
Six degrees of separation- the script
Give my love to rose- johnny cash
how- daughter
Skinny genes- Jenny bee cover
I miss the misery- ten second songs
Come on Eileen- Dexy midnight runners
Overkill- colin hay
rant song- scrubs
Ashita kuru hi Kobato
Bink's sake, rumbar pirates
Stronger than you- Garnet-steven
Burning Love- Elivis
So strong my face is
Murmaider
Owls- Weebls
Riding a black Unicorn- Voltaire
Put a banana in your ear
Soul- Ox
Amazing horse- Mr.Weebl
Elector Gypsy- Savlonic
The Driver- Salvonic
Tiny Japanese Girl- Salvonic
YOLO- Lonely Island
4 Chords- Axis of Awesome.
Rage of thrones- Axis of awesome
Renegade- Styx
He Lives in you(Reprise)-Lion King
Mirror B Theme
Dr. Mario- Brental Floss
All Champion Themes
Mercenary
Smash Bros
You Don't Know Me- Bandy Leggz
Ashley- Wario
Look who's laughing now
The stars-steam powered giraffe
deviljho
tetris with lyrics. Brental floss
When you walk away- kingdom hearts
every pokemon intro
Bishock song- Brental Floss
Bioshock infinite song- Brental Floss
Chop Chop Master onion rap- parappa the rapper
Undertale-Undertale
Squid Sisters
All rival theme
Dearly Beloved yoko shimomura
Video game medley-lindsey sterling
crash bandicoot 1 theme
mario bros theme
green hill sonic theme
pacman theme-smash
no more hereoes, its kill or be killed
I am all of me.
elite four battle themes
all lab themes
all team bosses
J.R.R tolkien vsx George R. R. Martin ERB
x gon give it to ya
Giant Woman Steven Universe
yoda weird al
Darth Vader vs Hitler 1 2 3
founding fathers trevor moore
Drive me bats: BTBTB
mother lover lonely island
Make man out of you TFS
El Barquito Voltaire
saga of jesse Jane Alice cooper
Danger zone Kenny
Be Prepared scar
Everybody wants to be a cat
Yes no
You're a fucking nerd Ok Go
On a boat one piece
boner song wkuk
anybody there? script
Crabs weebl
ultrasound: johnny massacre
I dreamed a dream anne hathaway
D&D stephen lynch
if we were gay ninja sex party
If you could see me now. script
Mine turtle tomska
I like trains tomska
monster masune
I dont want that for you steven universe
If I were gay stephen lynch
friends theme.
I love rock and rool, joan jett
hot patootie bless my soul rocky horror meatloaf
Ebola la la.
Wrecking ball beef seeds cover
65 rock songs, ten second songs
Ijime, Dame, Zettai
A boy named Sue. Johnny cash
Bad blood ten second songs
Roxanne-police
it's the little things alice cooper
Night surgeon- Repo! The genetic opera
Under Pressure-Queen.
Yakko's nations of the world
wakko's 50 capitols.
Feel good ten second songs
totally gay for america wkuk
Brooklyn Rage- Joey Wheeler
Come sail away Yugioh
I'm on a blimp kaiba
Pharaoh's throne yami
Hold me- steam powered giraffe
Soliton- Steam powered giraffe
Honeybee- Steam powered giraffe
Diamonds steam powered giraffe cover
I love it steam powered giraffe cover
Captain Albert Alexander Steam Powered Giraffe
I've got a theory buffy
what you feel buffy
wish I could stay Buffy
Moses supposes his toeses are roses singing in the rain
JJBA medly+ alt jojos
Old folks home WKUK
Hitler rap WKUK
getting high with dinosaurs wkuk
get a new daddy WKUK
The Never song WKUK
Aren't you lucky WKUK
God Says WKUK
God wants you to wear a hat WKUK.
Carl Poppa
Obsidiots
La Bibbida bibba dum
Fire fire Steam powered Giraffe
teen titans
teen titans jap
ghost napa
Black sheep scott pilgrim
Undertale the musical, papyrus, brental floss
Kirby with lyrics Brental Floss
Baby Mario and Papa Yoshi. Brental Floss
Automatonic Electronic steam powered giraffe
Mecto Amore steam powered giraffe
A way into your heart steam powered giraffe
I'll rust with you steam powered giraffe
I go looney, mark hamill, the joker
Heavens Not enough
Stray Steve Conte
jiyuu e no shoutai L'arc en ciel
hall of fame the script
Better off with her-Amethyst-Steven
Haven't you noticed-Sadie-Steven
Like a comment greg-steven
What can I do for you Rose & Greg- steven
Do it for her-Pearl & Connie – steven
Peace and love peridot and steven
Answer ruby/sapphire -steven
It's over, isn't it? Pearl- steven
Digmon eng/jap openings
You're my zing. Adam sandler
Hold the door Hodor
Stacy's Mom-Fountains of Wayne
1985 Bowling for soup.
High School Never ends Bowling for Soup
Into the Ocean- Blue October
Ok Go
Schniztlebank
Disenchanted MCR
amish paradise
foil
eat it
Gump
Ode to a superhero
Jurassic Park
Another tattoo
Fat
the saga begins
complicated
sports song
bedrock anthem
dare to be stupid.
Genius in france
ricky
happy birthday
polka face
first world problems
word crimes
preform this way
Drive thru
Party in the CIA
Couch Potato
weasel stomping day
white and nerdy
close but no cigar
CNR
Hardware Store
bob
virus alert.
Don't download this song. Weird al
Tacky weird al
all I want- kodaline
shooting star bad company
just what I needed
jacks lamnent
chi chi wo moge
Careless whisper
neon, salvonic
boombox lonely island
jack sparrow lonely island
GG the giraffe
die for you, alice cooper
It's me, Alice cooper.
Reign on me
halloween stephen lynch
can't sleep, clowns will eat me.
oogie Boogie
spooky scary skeleton
brains
epiphany
scooby doo openings
land of the dead
monster mash
repoman
death death
disco bloodbath boogie fever
don't fear the reaper
zombie prostitute
keeper of the reaper
kidnap the sandy claws.
Adams family/munsters/goosebumps
vampire club
feed my frankenstein
ghost busters
skeletons in my closet
courage the cowardly dog.
wrapped in silk
the one that got away
I know where you live
wake the dead
He's back, the man behind the mask
when you're evil
cannibal buffet
keepin halloween alive
This is halloween
I love you egg
Happy Birthday Voltaire
Tomorrow comes today
clint eastwoood
19-2000
rock the house
rock it
dirty harry
feel good
el manana
stylo
superfast jellyfish
on melancholy hill
rhinestone eyes
do ya thing
You're Welcome Moana
Shiney Moana
We know the way Moana
Kyle's Mom
Beard no Beard
Mysterious Ticking Noise
Oh no you didn't
candy mountain
I am a millipede
It's friday
Hound dog
Can't help falling in love
Here comes a thought- Steven
Love Like You Steven
Hey Oh RHCP/ Monsters Matchbook Romance
Christmas Time In Hell South Park
Christmas at ground zero
the night santa went crazy
You're a mean one Mr Grinch
Merry F ing Christmas
I fucking love christmas
Blue Christmas
xmas time might might bosstones
Christmas shoes
Davey's song
Barney stinsons christmas songs
Home alone the song
All I want for christmas is you tens econd songs
popo the genie
12 days of christmas tfs
12 days of christmas overwatch
marshmallow world spg
christmas slippers tiny dick
12 days of christmas canadian
chanukah song 1-4
Christmas song adam sandler
santa claws, alice cooper
town meeting
Making christmas
scrooge muppet christmas carol
I don't have a name for it spg
Cellophane Steam Powered Giraffe
over drive steam powered giraffe
malfunction
guy love scrubs
scrubs theme,
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Armageddon Anthem (Part 1) {TWD Fanfiction}
Notes: Originally on Quotev :)
Word Count: 2.3k
Warnings: attempted rape, language, violence (anything else that happened in the season 4 finale)
10:43 PM. You were keeping a close watch on the clock, as it was the only thing in your teacher’s office that was worth looking at.
“When are we gonna leave?” you tried not sounding too worried, but dramatically failed by the shaking of your voice.
“We need to stay here until I know it’s safe,” he muttered, flicking open the blinds with his fingers for mere seconds before letting out a nervous sigh.
“Mr. Wallen, please,” you were practically begging, but you didn’t care. “My family’s at home. I don’t know if they’re safe.”
“Be quiet,” he hissed, footsteps marching in the hallway right in front of the door.
He grabbed your wrist and pulled you to the other side of his desk, forcing you to crouch down as he did the same. You immediately understood why when the door opened and you heard what sounded like the wheezing of a gas mask, a few moments of silence, and then the shutting of the door.
You could see that Mr. Wallen was visibly relieved, moving the hand he had clasped on your mouth as a preventative measure.
“How do you know they weren’t trying to help?” Your voice was barely hovering above a whisper as you tried to steady your nervous heart.
“Rule number #1 for anything that happens? Don’t trust anyone you don’t know. They might get you killed.”
You were stunned into silence by what he said, eyes as wide as plates as you stared at him.
///
You let out a soft sigh as you awoke to the sound of birds chirping, wondering how they were surviving while humans all around you were dying. It was crazy; the idea of wildlife thriving as people’s stomachs ate themselves away out of starvation. Some things never changed, you supposed.
3 years. 1095 days since the outbreak had started. 3 years of living life without your stepmother, your father, or your stepsiblings. 3 years of scrounging for food, boiling water by the side of a river, and stabbing walkers whenever they got too close.
You hadn’t been alone for that long, thankfully. You had met many people, but they were either dead or on the verge of death. Somehow, you had managed to scrape yourself out of the situation, although you had questioned yourself if it was actually worth it. Escaping meant returning to the habits of a survivalist, which wasn’t something you enjoyed, to say the least. The deafening silence that constantly surrounded you certainly didn’t help, so days on end, your lips would form no words and you didn’t have the heart to change that.
Swinging your legs over the side of your bed, you let out a groan and straightened your stiff back, making it pop in protest multiple times. You slept like a dead man, as your mother used to say; once you got into a position, you didn’t move and your breathing slowed so much it looked like you weren’t at all. It was a blessing when you were sleeping on a forest floor or somewhere you could draw unwanted attention, but sometimes, it got in your way of having a good night’s rest.
The constant anxiety over what you had decided was best to do could easily be a factor as well.
Ever since the dead outnumbered the living, you thought it was best to leave open wounds untouched. You never mended broken relationships with fellow group members, or lessened hatred for someone once the fire was fueled, but you knew it was time to thread the needle and head back out to Terminus.
The day was quiet, as usual. Anything alive around you chose to not show it’s face, and no walkers were near your line of vision as you went to the river and refilled your gallon container as usual. You already had three large water bottles in a large backpack filled with non-perishable food items for a day you might need to run, which thankfully never came. The stove in the cabin still somehow worked, and since it was obviously a vacation home, it was still stocked with kitchen items, including a large pot you always boiled water in. Quite frankly, your life could hardly get better.
It became repetitive; check the snares or find something else for lunch, see if any more berries had grown on the small bushel about 20 yards away, cook whatever you found as your water is finishing boiling, eat lunch, check the string of alarms around the house to make sure there isn’t a breach, and find other things to occupy yourself until you felt tired enough to sleep. Maybe it wasn’t perfect, but you were living, and that’s all you wanted.
Just as you put a book with no visible title back on the shelf, you fell back into your bed with a sigh, your two holsters and sash of weapons still on your body as you closed your eyes. You let your eyes flutter shut for awhile, enjoying the sound of absolutely nothing. Silence was a curse throughout the day, but at night, it was the greatest gift a person could be granted. No shouting, no growling, no gunshots… just warmth and peace.
That is, until you heard the roaring of a truck engine.
You knew it wasn’t close, which came as a great relief. It meant you could easily sneak up on any attackers if need be. Your nerves were on high alert as you slung your quiver of arrows on your back, grabbed your bow right beside it, jogged to the door and slipped on your departing backpack before closing the door and sprinting into the direction of the sound.
Thankful you were wearing your jeans, boots, and jacket as the cold night air pricked needles into the tender flesh of your face, you swiftly jumped over fallen tree trunks and rocks, it was times like these your years of experience were useful in dire times.
You slowed down once you reached the edge of a familiar road, and sure enough, there was a small group of men aiming their guns at a woman with a sword, a kneeling man in a winter coat, and a man with a crossbow. You saw a young boy, someone only years younger than you, you supposed, being held into the ground as someone 3 times his size held him there, heart breaking at the sight. You knew it was best to stay hidden, however, as they had to prove they were worth your bullets and possible injury.
“Look, we can settle this,” A white haired, middle age man started. “We're reasonable men. First, we're gonna beat Daryl to death. Then we'll have the girl. Then the boy. Then I'm gonna shoot you and then we'll be square.”
“Stop your squirming,” you heard the creep mutter to the boy, sending a chill down your spine. Only a few more moments. Something was going to happen, and it wouldn’t be the kneeling man’s death. You could feel it.
Sure enough, he reared his head back and headbutted who you supposed to be the opposing force’s leader, gun going off right by his ear but coming nowhere close to hitting him.
You watched him stand up and punch the other guy straight in the face, before taking a blow himself and falling to the ground.
“Oh, it is going to be so much worse now,” He sneered as he kicked the man you were rooting for, anger bubbling in your stomach when you heard the man hovering over the child begin to unbuckle his belt.
“Come on,” you whispered to yourself, clutching your pistol in your hand as you raised it. “Don’t let me be wrong..”
“What the hell are you gonna do now, sport?” The leader smirked as he forced the guy to stand, faces close.
A smirk of your own crossed your face when the man sunk his teeth into the leader’s neck, not needing another weapon as he spat out a chunk of flesh and let him bleed out to the ground.
The woman turned a stranger’s hand around and shot him with the gun still in his hand, taking it from his lifeless grip and taking out another three of the men.
Once you saw the boy’s capture stand up and try to pull a knife on him, you knew that moment was your perfect chance, leaping over the bushes and stealthily sprinting up behind him.
“I-I’ll kill him!” He rasped out as he focused on the only person he saw aiming a gun at him, oblivious to the fact that you were standing right behind him.
“You sure about that?” your voice dripped gratification as you pulled the hammer down with your thumb, the ‘click’ of it locking in place sounding more satisfying than ever before. “You heard the woman; Let. The boy. Go.”
He immediately released his grip and you watched him run to the woman, gripping her tight into a hug.
“On your knees, now,” you demanded, to which he obliged without protesting or any words.
“Thank you,” you heard the stranger whisper despite all the commotion as he was still in the woman’s arms, head resting in her elbow as he hand curled up and rested on the top his hat.
You lost forgot how to speak the moment you heard him say those two simple words, not remembering the last time you heard them. You were sure other people may demand something besides words, like weapons or food or fuel, but that was all you could ever want. Maybe you were lucky that you still had portions of humanity still intact.
You nodded and shared a few moments stare with him, before averting your gaze to the incomer at your feet. Your beloved 8” Dan Wesson revolver was pressed right to the back of his head, although you had no intentions of shooting. The sicko needed a good scare, and you needed the assurance that he wouldn’t do anything stupid.
The woman once again raised her gun, but had it aimed right at the man’s head just as yourself.
“He’s mine,” Someone you recognized as the group’s partner growled as he stood up, lowering the gun with his palm. In fact, he didn’t even notice you until he began taking a few steps forward, staring straight into your eyes with a questioning look despite his rage.
“You’re the kid’s father, right?” You asked, returning the elongated look.
After a few moments of silence, he nodded, giving you a look that you knew meant you weren’t going to be the one killing this man.
You let out a bitter chuckle and ran your tongue across your top teeth with your mouth closed, leaning over and fully removing the man’s belt and tightly wrapping it around his neck instead, ignoring his sputtering sounds as you dragged him forward by the leather’s surplus, kicking him when you weren’t satisfied by his lack of movement.
“He’s all yours,” you raised your hands to prove you weren’t going to do anything, taking a few steps backwards.
The boy’s father repeatedly ran a machete through his stomach, holding his tied neck as the last ounces of life drained from his face, blood trailing down his chin. Finally, he collapsed to the ground, dead, and maybe the joy you felt should have scared you. Maybe.
“Who are you?” A stranger with a crossbow who you swear you heard being called Daryl growled, not backing down as it was aimed straight at your chest.
“Put it down. She saved Carl,” the blood was still on the outsider’s face as he looked at you. “You aren’t one of the greatest leaders out there. And if you were, why would you be here?”
So that was the kid’s name.
“Because my men are dead,” you stated quietly, replacing your pistol into it’s holster. “People tried taking what was ours-bad, bad people… and I wasn’t about to just give up what we worked so hard for. We went down how we wanted to: fighting. I certainly hope you weren’t looking for the infernals, because we’re gone.”
“And we’re supposed to believe that bullshit?” Daryl challenged, weapon steady in his arms.
“Don’t believe me, Johnny Cash,” you rolled your eyes, “frankly, I don’t give a shit what you think.”
“How old are you?” Carl pulled away from the woman previously holding him, eyes glued to you. He held something none of the adults surrounding him did; innocence. It was admirable.
“16,” you answered, trying to sound kind. “Maybe 17.”
“How many walkers have you killed?”
“Rick, you’re not actually considering this!” The woman objected.
“Countless,” you spoke, hands on your hips.
“How many people?” He ignored her protests.
“Somewhere around 15.”
“Why?”
“You’d be surprised the lengths I go to in order to protect the things I love, Mr. Grimes,” is all you said.
“How do you know my name?” He stiffened, becoming more demanding.
“You ran that prison about a mile or two out, right?” You questioned. “The one that got burned down to the ground by that bastard in an eyepatch?”
“How do you know about that?” The woman’s eyebrows pulled together in a frown.
“Kind of a long story, I’ll tell you tomorrow. It’s fucking freezing out here,” you spun on your heel and began treading back into the woods, not surprised by the footsteps fumbling behind you.
“Answer the question, bitch!” Daryl shouted, but you simply continued walking.
“You can snap at me all you want tomorrow, sunshine, but right now, I’m cold.”
You heard constant murmuring as you continued to lead the group through the forest, all voices ceasing the moment they laid eyes on the house.
“And this,” you turned around, arms spread, “Is when things get interesting.”
Notes: Quotev has A LOT more of this story up, just so you know. if you decide to head over there, leave me a comment saying you’re from tumblr!
If you prefer to stick to tumblr, leave me an ask saying you want more or if you want to be tagged :)
#the walking dead#twd#the walking dead fanfiction#twd fanfiction#twd fanfic#reader insert#twd reader insert#twd x reader#the walking dead reader insert#carl grimes#female OC (ish)#my writing
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