One Rule on the Citadel @bakasara - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
One Rule on the Citadel
@bakasara
Sara. She/her. My humble house with my humble fandom fixations that you are subjected to when you come here. Enjoy! Fandoms include Our Flag Means Death, WWDITS, Good Omens, Hannibal, The X-Files, BTVS, and more.
sam not trusting john much in the beginning, even though his grandfather mandated that he keep this liechtenstein hidden. understanding that there must be politics behind the decision but irritated that it falls on him to entertain yet another pampered noble who's only being half-decent to them as long as it's convenient. hitting john with a fair amount of snark the first few times they speak. as they get to know each other, growing more and more convinced that john is a kind man capable of caring about others even when they're different than him, off of having a good heart and principles. becoming companionable with john the way we see in-game as the trust grows, to the point that there's finally conversation and banter and mutual comfort and respect. and hoping that his actions speak louder than words, then. that it's understood the wariness wasn't personal and that the less charitable of his comments are implicitly forgiven in this new friendship they've struck up. starting to believe they've moved on for good the more he sees how genuinely fond john seems of him, the way john seeks him out and is always in such high spirits around him.
meanwhile john the whole time sam was being a bitch: beautiful men in my area want to be mean to me 🫦
"it would be so good if it was good" will haunt you but "it's extremely good, except for the one or two parts which are so bad it's genuinely kind of insulting" will straight up drive you insane
one has you making posts like "okay but if the author UNDERSTOOD the POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS of the story they were telling, and leaned into it, it would actually be a really interesting exploration of..."
the other has you pacing your bedroom at one in the morning going "why. why would you ever in a million years do it like that. genuinely what possible thought process was involved. was the writer possessed by a fucking ghost or something."
you solve the mystery of what to have for dinner one night and you think "hell yeah case closed forever" WRONG there is a dinner mystery the next night too
My S3 fix-it canon-compliant fic is now complete. 11k words that start right after S2 ended and diverges from the S3 movie the moment the Metatron is ripped from the Book of Life. If you’re interested in a fix-it that acknowledges what we got and takes it an entirely new direction in a Choose Your Own Ending type way, check it out!
World Without End
Excerpt below the cut:
Saraqael located Michael at once on their tracking device. “They’re upstairs.”
“We’re all upstairs,” Sandalphon huffed.
“Up-upstairs,” Saraqael said. They pointed toward the ceiling. “Metatron level.”
“That’s impossible,” Uriel said. “No one is allowed up there except the Metatron. Obviously.”
“Who has just been attacked,” Aziraphale cut in before the two archangels could exchange further barbs. For goodness’ sake, it was like corralling children sometimes with those two. “Perhaps Michael saw the culprits and is right now trying to keep the Metatron safe. Angels—with me!”
“But we’re not authorized,” Uriel began.
Aziraphale waved off her words. “I authorize this. Emergency circumstances. I will take full responsibility if I’m mistaken.” He stopped by the lift and turned to point a finger at Sandalphon. “Except for you. Stay here and find your charge. Find him, or I will have no choice but to demote you.”
“But—” Sandalphon began.
The ding of the lift cut him off, and Aziraphale hurried the others inside. He pressed the button to the top floor, fingers shaking. A moment later, they were on the way up, up, up.
Aziraphale was braced for potential battle when the lift disgorged them. He didn’t have his sword any longer, but he would fight if need be. He was not prepared to find the room empty of anyone except Michael, shaking and moaning in a crumpled heap, one hand clutched in agony around a page from the Book of Life. Flames licked the edges of the paper, soot and smoke staining Michael’s fingers.
A shiver of instinctual terror washed through Aziraphale, and he was moving before he knew what he planned to do. Something deep inside him told him that if that page burned through entirely, everything would be lost. The entirety of existence would break. Reality would be unmade.
*****
The movie Clue is one of my all-time favorites. If you’re not familiar with it, it comes with three endings. There are cue cards that flip between the different endings. The first says: “That’s how it could have happened. // But how about this?”
This is literally the first thing that came to my mind when my brain unscrambled enough from watching the finale. A story can end many ways. It can end many ways without changing the substantive content of what came before. The Book of Life / butterfly effect / reality catching up “logic” of S3 gave me the perfect opportunity to write a canon-compliant alternate S3 that I preferred to what we got.
Note: this is not a full S3 fic. I’ve written numerous S3 fics in the last three years – my pinned post has links out to them – and I didn’t feel the urge to create another. I only wanted to write a bridge story, one that starts with the way the IRL S3 began and then diverges as soon as the BoL plot opens itself up to an “everything can be canon” type situation, leaving “what happens next” up to everyone’s individual imaginations.
It has been a good experience, writing this. I’ve used lines from the movie, and so scenes I’ve written have started to transplant themselves over the ones we got. I’ve started to feel warm, fuzzy feelings about S3 because I can “remember” the proper communication and the sweet kiss and the way Az and Crow work together to fix the Book of Life. It also helped me to sort out all my thoughts about the finale, good and bad, and land squarely on a quote from another of my favorite movies, The Hours: “I don’t accept this. I don’t accept what you say.” And happily, because of the way the movie was written, I don’t have to accept it. So I won’t, and I will move on. 💕
literally there’s so much joy to be found in being earnest. so much happiness in being sincere. anyone who tells you otherwise is just trying to get company for their misery.
blakekathryn
andulkaphoto
tangentwithtanner
discoholicmusic
janainaart
theartofmadeline
titsay
