“And now you’re supposed to call off the engagement because it’d be tacky if I did it since I proposed, but you’re picking out cake and flowers for the reception, wtf are we doing this” sequel au
Consider: Crowley can canonically use his powers to clean stuff but he chooses to take showers anyway because
Crowley’s shower thoughts, 1970s: “You go too fast for me” what the FUCK does that Mean also hey what if the M25 was a demonic sigil
Someone open up a sideblog called “Crowley’s shower thoughts”. I would do it myself but I’m too unimaginative
Give me a Harry Potter who can’t sleep. Not just because he dreams of Voldemort. Give me Harry Potter who startles awake at every stray noise in the dorm, every creaking floor and cough, who wakes with a gasp ready to hear Aunt Petunia’s screech. Ready to be yanked out of bed, put to work or punished.
Give me a Harry Potter who is nervous to take too much food in the dining hall, who keeps automatically picking up his plate when he’s done, ready to clear and clean it before he remembers, embarrassed, that it isn’t his job anymore.
Give me a Harry who makes himself small and silent when he knocks something over. Harry who tries desperately to clean a spill before Mrs. Weasley sees it, who apologizes profusely when she finds him, who can’t help but tear up when she disappears it with a wave of her wand and chuckles as she reassured him no mess will ever compare to her twins.
Give me a Harry working to overcome a decade of abuse and neglect. Give me a Harry with ptsd not just from major moments of trauma, but complex-ptsd from years of consistent neglect and emotional abuse.
I have a headcanon that Hermione insists her children attend some primary muggle schooling before Hogwarts, just as she had done. Now, imagine Arthur Weasley attending his grandchild’s science fair, being the ultra proud grandfather….and yet also completely geeking out over absolutely EVERYTHING.
Canon
“That is a volcano, that is a VERY SMALL VOLCANO, how - young lady, how did you make this? Baking soda and food coloring? MARVELOUS!”
the kids would love him.
Never have I ever loved anything more than I love this
All the muggle teachers would think he was being so adorable, “pretending” not to know how potato batteries and mini-volcanoes work, fawning over the hard work the kids did on even the simplest the projects. And he comes every year, because after the kids have aged out (”gone on to some boarding school in Scotland,” the teachers say over bad coffee in the break room, “they didn’t seem the type”), he gets an honorary invitation to the fair every year, because he never stops making the kids feel smart and good.
“And this airy-o-plane, it flies by means of a… rubber band? Did I hear that correctly? No magic at all? Doesn’t flap its wings like a bird? MARVELOUS! What an ingenious method of flight!” *looks around* “You, sir! With the ribbons! This child deserves one of those prizes!”
This is so wholesome.
Arthur Weasley, as the Science Fair attendee we all deserve.
After a couple years Arthur Weasley brings his own ribbons. They shimmer in a way that makes everyone wonder what kind of ink he uses—“secrets!” he tells anyone who asks—but they’re beautiful. They’re coveted even more than the official ribbons, because they remind you that while he was heaping praise on you, you felt magical.
This is one of the best HP headcanons I’ve ever read.
Tom…you realize you’ve just described Ironstrange, right?
Tom Holland is fighting the good fight
Can we all just appreciate that when Aziraphale was playing Crowley, he played him far cooler and sexier than Crowley had portrayed himself the entire show. Crowley is a dork, but that isn’t how Aziraphale sees him. He genuinely believes Crowley is the suavest and coolest being he knows.
And Crowley plays Aziraphale as incredibly brave, yet extremely forgiving and kind to the end. Someone who shows no weakness even when faced with destruction.
Just the fact that they each see the other as the best version of themself is so incredibly sweet and perfect to me.
Differences I’ve noticed between TV Crowley and Book Crowley.
When Aziraphale tells Crowley that there’s goodness in him near the beginning of the story:
TV Crowley: (angrily) I’m NOT nICE hoW DARE yOu Book Crowley: (sadly) Tell the whole blessed world, why don’t you
Any time anything remotely outstanding happens:
Book Crowley: (grabs Aziraphale’s arm or hand because that’s his emotional support angel) TV Crowley: (doesn’t)
When Satan decides to pop in for a chat:
TV Crowley: (acts because Aziraphale threatens him with silence) Book Crowley: (acts because Aziraphale convinces him that fighting for humanity is what’s right and he doesn’t have anything to lose anyway)
When Hell contacts Crowley about Spanish Inquisition:
TV Crowley: I’ll accept this commendation because that’s what you do when an opportunity presents itself. Book Crowley: (drinks himself into oblivion after taking one look at torture devices)
When Aziraphale tells him that there’s good in him at the end of the book:
TV Crowley: you’re enough of a bastard to be worth knowing Book Crowley: you’re enough of a bastard to be worth liking
When Adam considers the possibility of The Great Plan being actually important:
TV Crowley: (is calm and generally fine, Aziraphale starts talking because he’s Aziraphale) Book Crowley: (hides his face in his hands and whispers his goodbyes to everything, only after that does Aziraphale stand up from their hiding place and starts asking questions)
When Aziraphale complains about his clothes, ruined with paint:
TV Crowley: (miracles the stain away in a flashy manner) Book Crowley: (doesn’t do anything about it, changes subject. then again, in the book he doesn’t have that “savior and damsel in distress” kind of relationship with the angel, helping each other is fairly balanced between them )
Overall, I find that the difference is mainly this:
TV Crowley’s responce to stress is anger, and he’s motivated by Aziraphale mainly, while Book Crowley tends to be terrified but push through it, and his main motivator is his love for Earth and humanity and his sense of right and wrong.
(I’m not saying the difference is good or bad, I’m saying that it’s just. there.)
AH PERFECT THAT’S ON POINT The characters are very much alike but these particular things make them widely different persons and I just think that’s fantastic. That’s why the book and the series are so alike yet so different, why they are complementary works but also completely standing on their own. Crowley and Aziraphale are not the same. Their motivations are not exactly the same. Therefore the plot is not exactly the same.
Pepper knows she’ll never remarry.
She doesn’t think she could, even if she tried. And she doesn’t. Try, that is. Because of all the things she’s trying to do these days (keep Stark Industries running, running damage control as Rescue, be a good parent, make sure Morgan doesn’t grow up traumatised, stop everyone from looking at her with so much pity), finding a new Tony is definitely not on her list.
The therapist Rhodey recommends her says that’s not what dating is. It’s rebuilding. The lady has experience. She must’ve gotten a lot of work after the snap. But Pepper knows what rebuilding is. It’s rebar and concrete and straining to push up walls with her thrusters in high and then it’s landing, it’s hearing a small crunch and looking down because somehow, inexplicably there’s a plastic iron man mask crushed under her boot and when she picks it up, and hands it back to the doe-eyed kid, she’s thankful the helmet hides her tears. That’s what rebuilding is, she snaps and the therapist - her name is something like Linda or Margaret and it doesn’t matter - the therapist just nods and Pepper doesn’t go back for a second appointment.
She knows that it’s not the point. That she didn’t win that argument, if it even was one. She knows that it’s because she can still feel his skin pressed up to her lips. Because he looked at her as he died. Because when he breathed for the last time, it was so that he could say her name.
It’s because of a lot of things, but in the middle of the night when Pepper wakes up to an empty space where Tony used to sleep, she knows that he was the only man she’d ever wanted to kiss.
They’d gotten married by the lake. The wedding was big, but not as big as it could’ve been - they’d been ready for the vows as soon as Tony could stand without passing out. And there was a line of empty chairs at the front, kept empty with a harsh whisper and a knowing look because everyone knew what it meant.
Tony had fiddled with his tie all morning.
‘You know I still think-‘ he’d started and she’d interrupted, amused, in love, annoyed at how he’d somehow messed up the Windsor knot.
‘I am not getting married to you in a metal suit.’
And then he’d gotten pouty and snarky and she knew he was nervous because she was as well. By the time they got to the altar, the tie was more like a decorative twist of cloth. But at that point she didn’t care about the tie anymore because he’d stared at her like she was the most precious thing he’d ever seen in his life and he’d laughed in this incredulous breath of love, speechless for the first time in his life, and he’d kissed her.
Later they would tease each other over crying. Pepper would always insist Tony was the first one to break, and she knows she’ll maintain that opinion until the day she dies.
At the after party, he’d spilled wine all over her wedding dress and they’d made out in a dark corner like they were teenagers. There’d been confetti in his hair, little scraps of rainbow paper that fluttered down around them when she dragged him closer, groaned into his mouth. He was still so fragile - Pepper remembers smoothing her hands over the shoulders of his dress shirt and catching on the bumps. But even then he was her anchor, he was a smug grin to cover up the bags under her eyes, a sharp quip made vulnerable - ‘not having second thoughts are you?’ - and then it was her kissing him again, knowing that there was more to do, more to say but in that moment all they needed was each other.
One day, that need won’t haunt every second of her life. One day, she’ll stop lying to herself and really rebuild. But tonight, Pepper remembers the feeling of Tony’s arms around her, she remembers the feeling of his lips pressed to her shoulder in a ‘goodnight’. Tonight, she thinks about the only husband she’ll ever have, and she grieves.
I think about this so much! Aziraphale isn’t perfect, but he’s warm and earnest and affectionate and well-intentioned, and the other angels just aren’t. They’re heartless and calculating, and nothing they do or say indicates a capacity for true compassion or love. Aziraphale thinks he’s kind and loving because he’s an angel, but he’s wrong. He’s like that because he’s him.
And it’s so lonely being someone like Aziraphale in an environment like Heaven. If you go back to the scene in the first episode where he and Crowley are standing on the wall, you can see how starved he is for kindness. Crowley says one nice, comforting thing, something he knows Aziraphale desperately wants to hear (“you’re an angel, I don’t think you can do the wrong thing”) and he lights up and starts babbling. He’s so happy and grateful and excited, and he keeps reacting that same way, reaching for more of that, for the next 6000 years. It’s never quite possible for him to walk away from Crowley, no matter what reservations he might have about their opposite sides, because who else will reassure him that he did the right thing by going against his boss? Who else will openly voice the doubts and worries he’s been keeping bottled up? Who else will come get him from a French prison or save his books from a bomb or make Hamlet a hit? No one on “his side” seems to be capable of anything more than superficial friendliness, but Aziraphale needs genuine affection. Crowley, for all he makes a big deal of acting like a dick, excels at genuine affection.
