Three Holidays Krishna Loves And One He Hates (or Vice Versa)? - Really, I Am So, So Glad You're Doing

Some countries have trained builders in the informal sector in safe building techniques.

Peak comedy.

@ferociouspompom 's hashtag!

Damn right!!

I don’t know how I didn’t figure this out but now that I have I don’t know what to do with this information

If you and your partner practice frequent, non-sexual consent, your relationship will be healthier and easier.

“Are you comfortable with me ranting about my day for a few minutes?”

“Oh, this is your poetry? Would it be okay if I read it?”

“Do you mind if I use your phone for a few minutes?”

“Wow, your meal looks awesome. Could I try some?”

It will save a lot of grief, especially in a developing relationship. Eventually, with consistent “yes’s” and “no’s” you can figure out more permanent boundaries and guidelines.

“I need to ask before ranting about my day or taking their food, but my partner is okay with me using their phone whenever. However, my partner does not like me reading their poetry unless they offer first.”

it’s a super short scene in the show but it says so much. crowley never does anything that really harms anyone (see: paintballs & pennies & phone lines), little of it is cruel in the ways that humans can be cruel — which makes it even more meaningful that he chooses humanity in the end. sure, he needs to drink for days to deal with it, but when he’s sober again, he stays

A thought piece.

Crowley, teaching Aziraphale to drive: Okay, so you’re driving and Gabriel and Michael walk onto the road. Quick, what do you hit?

Aziraphale: Oh definitely Gabriel

Crowley, sighing: The brakes, angel. You hit the brakes.

Folks let me talk about Crowley and sunglasses, because I have a lot of emotions about when he wears them and when he doesn’t, and Hiding versus Being Seen.

We’re introduced to the concept of Crowley wearing glasses even before we’re introduced to Crowley, by Hastur: “If you ask me he’s been up here too long. Gone native. Enjoying himself too much. Wearing sunglasses even when he doesn’t need them.”

Honestly Crowley’s whole introduction is a fantastic; we learn so much about his character in a tiny amount of time. The fact that he’s late, the Queen playing as the Bentley approaches, the “Hi, guys” in response to Hastur and Ligur’s “Hail Satan”. I like this intro much better than the one originally scripted with the rats at the phone company, but I digress.

Crowley wears sunglasses when he doesn’t need them. Specifically, he still wears them around the demons, and when he’s in hell.

You know where Crowley doesn’t wear glasses? At home.

We never once see him wearing glasses in his flat, except for when he knows Hastur and Ligur are coming. That’s an emotional kick to the gut for me. Here’s one of the only places Crowley’s comfortable enough to be sans glasses, and when he knows it’s going to be invaded he prepares not just physically with the holy water, but by putting up that emotional barrier in a place where he wasn’t supposed to need it.

An argument could be made that Crowley actually never needs glasses. We’re shown that it’s well within the angels’ and demons’ powers to pass unnoticed by humans. Crowley and Aziraphale waltz out of the manor in the middle of a police raid, and going unnoticed by the police takes so little effort that they can keep up a conversation while they stroll through. Even an unimaginative demon like Hastur apparently doesn’t have trouble with the humans losing it over his demonic eyes. The humans in the scene at Megiddo are acting like “this guy is a little weird” and not “holy shit his entire eyeballs are black jelly”

That means that Crowley’s glasses are a choice, just like Aziraphale’s softness. Sure, he could arrange matters so that nobody ever noticed his eyes, but he doesn’t want to. Crowley wants acceptance, and he wants to belong, and he’s never, ever had that. He didn’t fit in before the Fall in Heaven, he doesn’t fit in with the demons in Hell. With the glasses, and with the Bentley and his plants and with the barely-bad-enough-to-be-evil nuisance temptations, he’s choosing Earth. This is where he wants to fit in, perhaps not with the humans, but amongst them.

Even after Crowley is at his absolute lowest, when he thinks Aziraphale’s dead and he’s on his way to drink until the world ends, he takes the time to put a new pair on when the old ones are damaged. He needs that emotional crutch right now, even with everything about to turn into a pile of puddling goo he’s not ready for the world to see his eyes.

Which is why I swore out loud when Hastur forcibly takes them off.

It’s about the worst thing that Hastur could have done. Rather than leading with a physical threat, his first act is to strip away Crowley’s emotional defences. It’s a great writing choice because god it made me hate Hastur, even more than all the physical violence we see him do.

It’s also the moment that Crowley really truly gets his shit together, and focuses all of his considerable imagination on getting to Tadfield and Aziraphale to help save the world. He’s wielding the terrifyingly unimaginable power of someone who’s hit rock bottom and realised it literally could not get any worse than this. He doesn’t put another pair of glasses on after discorporating Hastur, and he spends the majority of the airbase sequence without them.

He puts them back on again, I think, at the moment that he really lets himself hope. When he thinks ‘shit, there may be a real chance that we get through this to a future that I don’t want to lose’.

The vulnerability is back, and he needs Adam to trust him. In Crowley’s mind being accepted by a human means he needs to have his eyes hidden. Someone give the demon a hug, please.

Interestingly, there’s only one time in the whole series that we see Crowley willingly choose to take his glasses off around another person. Only one person he’ll take down that barrier for, and even then he’s drunk before he does it.

Dear God/Satan/Someone that makes my heart ache. Crowley’s chosen Earth, but he’s also chosen Aziraphale. He’s been looking for somewhere to belong his entire existence, and it’s with the angel that he finally feels it.

When the dust settles and the world is saved and they finally have space to be themselves unguarded, I like to imagine Crowley takes off the glasses when it’s just the two of them; the idea of being known doesn’t scare him quite so much anymore.  

I really can’t stop thinking about how the only reason we have this show at all is because of a promise Neil made to Terry, because they had been trying to get it made for years and it kept falling through and then Terry died and Neil absolutely was not going to do it without him but Terry asked him to make sure it got made, so Neil put aside everything he felt about making it without Terry and did it anyway, and not only that but he wrote the adaptations (which as far as I know isn’t something he has done for his other works) and took on the role of showrunner aka a big job that’s a lot of work, and literally didn’t do the thing he does, didn’t write, for almost two years to make sure he could make this show the way it was supposed to be, the way Terry would want it, he did all of that out of love for his friend and to keep his promise. So we’re all losing our minds over these two occult/ethereal beings whose love for each other is as present throughout human history as the sun and stars, whose connection to each other is as fundamental as the earth itself and persists throughout the limitations of time, but the only reason we have that angel and demon and their love is because of the love Neil has for Terry, his own love that transcends the limitations of time, and he took that love and made it into this show he didn’t even want to make once Terry was gone but Terry asked him to so he did anyway, he took the sheer enormity of love he felt for his friend - and it must be enormous, just look at all he did - and he made it into this show, he made a show about transcendental love out of his own transcendental love, and it just feels like something precious and it feels like such a gift and I just don’t want to overlook that and I really want to say: thank you, Neil. Thank you for sharing that love with us.

Rasputin in Popular Culture: Supernaturally vigorous man refuses to die.

Rasputin in Reality: A bunch of nerds who think they know how murder works because they read a book repeatedly fail to kill a man who’s too drunk to realise he’s being murdered.