Another version of "hope brothers have a conversation", except this time Trunks doesn't feel so hopeful 🥲
I've done so many versions of this conversation that end on a hopeful note, but I wanted to explore the side of Trunks that starts spiraling downwards when everything starts to fall apart during the Cell Games. Like, he probably let himself truly feel like the nightmare was going to be over, and all of a sudden they're on the lookout with no plan and a raging android on the loose. I wonder if he had a feeling of "maybe fate is inevitable".
There is no drug on earth that can replicate the absolute euphoria of hitting a writing flow state at 2:00 AM. You aren’t even typing anymore. You are a vessel. You are a channel for the gods. The characters are speaking directly into your brain and you’re just the stenographer trying to keep up. You feel like you could fight a bear. You feel like you invented the alphabet
Saw yet another “darkfic means you’re secretly dangerous” take, so here’s the longer version of what I wanted to say.
COVID-era fandom discourse did real damage to people’s ability to separate discomfort from danger.
The landscape of online spaces underwent a major psychological shift around 2020. Hyper-isolation, heightened anxiety, and constant digital proximity accelerated a harmful trend: treating psychological discomfort as though it were the same thing as physical danger.
In digital spaces, we have largely forgotten how to coexist with things that upset us. Instead of navigating public spaces with personal boundaries, modern fandom increasingly operates like an ideological panopticon, where consuming or creating “dark” content is treated as a moral confession.
01. The Purpose of the Sign: Informed Consent vs. Normalization
The core of this modern moral panic lies in what a content warning actually represents.
The door sign analogy: A warning label on transgressive fiction, or darkfic, is a door sign. It clearly states what is on the other side. It is one of the clearest tools we have for reader autonomy.
The normalization fallacy: Critics argue that tagging and publishing dark content “normalizes” harmful real-world behavior. This is a basic failure of media literacy. Depiction is not endorsement. A warning label does not say, “This behavior is acceptable in society.” It says, “This fictional narrative contains heavy themes; proceed at your own discretion.”
The “Dead Dove” contract: The whole joke of the “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat” tag is that you found exactly what was written on the bag. It is a contract of absolute transparency. To look at a sign that says “Keep Out,” walk inside anyway, and then demand that the building be demolished is not activism. It is entitlement.
02. Curation vs. Policing: The Loss of Digital Sovereignty
Healthy internet use requires personal sovereignty. You are the absolute ruler of your own dashboard, feed, inbox, blocklist, and filtered tags.
Healthy curation: Using tools like blocklists, muted words, and tag filters is a mature way to manage your own experience. It honors the statement, “This makes me uncomfortable, so I will step away.”
Authoritarian policing: Changing that statement to “You make me uncomfortable, so you should be put on a list” transforms a personal boundary into a social punishment. It replaces individual responsibility with censorship and public suspicion, echoing the anti-comic-book crusades of the 1950s and the Satanic Panic of the 1980s.
03. Fictional Sandboxes and Psychological Safety
Fictional harm has a body count of zero.
Writing or reading about dark themes can create a controlled space for exploring fear, grief, powerlessness, anger, trauma, taboo, and survival without causing real-world harm.
When fandom polices these fictional sandboxes, it can ironically harm the very people it claims to protect. Many survivors use dark fiction as a private, controlled environment for processing complicated feelings. Forcing those narratives underground does not protect anyone. It strips creators and readers of agency, nuance, and context.
04. Reclaiming the Right to Walk Away
Fandom does not need to be a monolith of pure, unproblematic comfort. It needs to be a space that respects adult autonomy.
We need to reclaim the distinction between a threat and a trigger.
If you see a door with a warning sign, you have every right to turn around and walk away. What you do not have is the right to lock everyone else outside with you.
A warning label is not normalization.
It is a door sign telling you what is inside.
One of my favorite themes Midst is exploring is what it means for a person to become an idol, a symbol. How they and the narrative deal with that is FASCINATING.
Obviously we have Lark. Clara Mire was shoved into her symbol at a very young age— she became the poster child for Caneum, the boogeyman under Trustee’s beds, the universal villain. She has spent her entire life running from that symbol, adopting an alias and jumping from place to place. But her tragedy is that in running from her symbol, she has had to partially become it. Lark is TERRIFYING, and leverages that all the time, against Fuze, Phineas, even Tzila. Lark became dangerous to run from her symbol of Dangerous.
Then we have our buddy Tripotentiary Moc Weepe. Upon his transformation, he becomes the symbol of the Trust. He literally and figuratively makes the Trust translucent to show off its diseased, rotting insides. He is the true Trust, inside and out. No wonder everyone hates him.
Jonas Spahr is forced to be this golden idol— don’t show weakness, put on a media-ready smile, not a hair out of place and it’s showtime. He groomed to be this way like one of Costigan’s plants, and she’s snipped away all of his natural humanities. He is golden and perfect at the cost of his personhood, and it’s killing him.
Contrast that against Phineas Thatch. Phineas tries to become that golden idol, Spahr tries to cull his imperfections, but it doesn’t stick. Phineas is too messy, too human, he can’t become the untouchable symbol. So he’s rejected and abandoned by his idolatristic society.
I think even Hieronymous Loxlee could count as a symbol— if Weepe is the Trust, Harry’s the Breach. Secretive, in disguise, hidden in plain sight. It’s a heavy burden to carry though, causing him to have to make decisions as a symbol rather than as a person. He needs to maintain the Breach above his own personal relationships—drop the moon on Midst if it saves the Breach, even if it dooms his loved ones and his own daughter. He can’t afford to be a person, he has to be the symbol.
But then Midst episode 15: Breach comes and says they’re just people. Lark is just an old woman. Jonas Spahr is just a man. It’s a clash of these various symbols and ideologies and inflated idols but they’re all flesh and blood that can die in an explosion. Anyways
Writer: So They Spooned All Night And The Brooding One Allowed Themselves To Feel Vulnerable For The First Time In Years And The Chirpy One Got Some Quality Snuggles
There was only one bed and so they lay there together, only inches apart physically but it may as well have been miles for neither could muster the courage to tell the other the true depth of their feelings and so they lay there sleepless in their mutual pining
There was only one bed. A carried B to it and gently eased them down. They were both badly injured but B’s conditions were much worse and A wouldn’t rest until they knew B was going to be alright. So A sat down next to B and brushed their hair back, holding their hand as B shivered through the night, their only comfort A’s presence by their side.
There was only one bed. This is normal. They’ve been married for a decade and have a small child. The child has climbed in bed to snuggle with them because thunder is scary. They have their baby curled between them and they share soft, warm smiles over his sleepy head as he snores little kid snores.
Me, who just wants domestic curtains found family fic:
There was only one bed, the two characters argued and bickered begging for them not to have to share it, but they somehow are here still. They agree that there both going to pick a side and stay on it. This was going fine until in the middle of the night A woke up screaming and crying, B gets them to calm down and they end up falling asleep next to each other feeling safe
There was only one bed. A noticed B’s exhaustion and lifted them easily. “You don’t have to carry me like a child,” B noted, despite being clearly pleased by how matters were progressing. “I think we both know that’s not true,” A replied with a grin. The bed was warm, inviting, and yet something was missing. “Is this a private party, or can just anyone join,” C called from the doorway, clad only in their underwear and a smile. “Only if it’s you!” A and B replied in unison as they drew the covers back.
Incomplete List of Moments from the TV Show "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" for which Andre Braugher Should Have Won Every Available Award
Went back to my inactive xwitter to find this incomplete and out of order thread of moments for which Andre Braugher should have won an Emmy. Gem after gem after gem. God dammit he was so good dude this sucks!!
infatuation makes your heart race
love is quiet. love sets you at ease.
and because most of my pieces are mental screenshots of little scenes in my head, here's the scene:
Crowley was tugged into consciousness bit by bit. The afternoon light slowly filtered in, as well as the hum of music from the other room and the weird angle his neck was at. He was warm and content and wanted to sink back into his nap, but the threads of sleep fluttered away the more he tried. Finally, he took a deeper breath, shifting in the armchair, and cracked an eye open just a sliver. There he was, the angel, sitting at his desk. Had hardly noticed Crowley was awake, engulfed in his task of retouching a damaged page. Looking at his hands, Crowley became aware of the fuzzy warmth covering his own and peeked down to see a blanket tucked around his shoulders.
The feeling hit him so hard he let his head loll to the side, eyes closed. His chest tightened and he just…buckled. Finally came undone under the weight of his love for Aziraphale. Its inexorable, steadfast pull which he had been pushing back against for millennia, it had finally caught him off guard, sleepy and vulnerable and so tired from holding back, from refusing to name it. It was a quiet surrender. Crowley looked back at Aziraphale with the understanding of a man meeting his end and embracing it.
Perhaps he could gently pull the blanket to the side and get up. Perhaps he could cross the few steps to the desk and place a freshly made cup of tea to Aziraphale’s right. Perhaps he would hold his gaze, for longer than needed to answer “Don’t mention it”. Perhaps he would ask him if he would like a scone with that. Perhaps Aziraphale would understand that this was not about the scone at all. And yet, what Crowley was asking of him was also exactly about scones. And tea. And quiet afternoons together. Perhaps the angel would finally put down his sword, too, and the world would let out a breath it had been holding for millennia.
and because im gnawing at my enclosure bars, some thoughts:
-yes, it is based on this picture. somehow in the 10+ years ive been acutely aware of its existence i havent once seen the twelfth night so the composition is pretty much as far as my reference to it goes lol
-the quote i wrote specifically for this piece.
-and it echoes an overarching theme in pretty much all my GO art: their relationship is so grounded in the physical, in the corporeal. adopting a human form for millennia on earth, eating, drinking, dancing, that's what sets them apart. the ox rib as in carnal as in of this world.
-which brings me to some choices i made: crowley and aziraphale are flushed, shiny with sweat, tendons pushing against skin. the starmaker does have a slight blush (tinted copper, for ichor) but they do not bleed where pierced. not only as in a ghost, but as in of heaven, immaterial. that is what crowleys plea boils down to: its us, our love is the way earth shaped us.
-the sword is intended to be the one aziraphale gave away in eden. it just fit in my head, it was the first symbol for crowley that this angel is different, has a deep potential for complexity, but is also good good in his core, not only heaven-good. its the first time aziraphale stepped away from heaven and its a plea for him to do it again.
Jimbriel, Satan, the Book of Life, and what it means for Crowley
Acknowledging that what we know so far about the Book of Life from various characters is highly suspect, I'm going to posit to you that Beelzebub is actually the true authority on the Book of Life, and that they bookend Season 2 with very important (and hopefully accurate) information about the Book of Life. With that in mind, let's take Beezlebub's S2E1 description and see how it fits with other canon evidence:
But what does it mean to have never existed in the Good Omens universe? For that, let us look to Satan.
From in-show canon, we know that Adam was able to retroactively change Satan's status as his father to not his father:
Adam altered reality, although Crowley, Aziraphale, the other celestials, and even Adam himself remember those events from a timeline that supposedly has been erased:
But Crowley nonetheless confirms that this is reality now. Satan was never Adam's father.
Additionally, though not technically in-show canon, we know from Notorious NRG that once Satan became Lucifer, this erased Lucifer from existence in the GO universe:
And Crowley's monologue in the bar drives it home; even though Lucifer no longer exists, Crowley still remembers him, and some key events that they were involved in together.
But a more dramatic portrayal of erasure is found in our favorite Good Omens himbo, Jimbo. In the trial of Gabriel, the Metatron makes direct allusion to the fact that Gabriel will no longer be Gabriel after his demotion:
Not "your memory of your time as the supreme archangel will be erased," no, it's:
Your memory of your time as Gabriel will be erased.
Whether he means to or not, Aziraphale reinforces this characterization of memory-loss-as-new-identity:
This can be taken simply as a safety measure, but Jimbo doesn't understand it that way and we see throughout the remainder of the season that Aziraphale is very consistent about calling his unexpected guest "Jim," even correcting Crowley when they're speaking privately and it wouldn't blow his cover to call him Gabriel:
But the final word on memory and identity, especially as they pertain to Jimbriel, again comes from our Lord of the Flies, Beelzebub:
All your you is your memories.
Altogether we see that there is significant in-show canon to support a theory that memory is inextricably linked with identity, and that when memory is removed, identity is so drastically changed that the name of the entity must also change... and the person who existed before, with that former name, exists no longer; it is as if they never had.
(But, as we see in the case of Gabriel, they can be restored.)
I told you in the title that this post was about the Book of Life: it is. Everything discussed here about memory and identity must necessarily characterize how the Book of Life operates, at least with respect to erasure. When someone is erased, they don't vanish, but they are so changed it is as if a new person has taken the place of the old, the way Jim took the place of Gabriel, until he got his memories back. But we can surmise that when someone is erased from the Book of Life, their memories aren't conveniently stored in a TARDIS/Ru Paul fly for later recovery. The memories may not be gone, but I'm going to guess that they would be extremely difficult (or impossible) to retrieve.
What this means for Crowley:
I think we need to give this scene a lot more credit for telling us how this universe works. Surface level, it reads as "you don't understand my trauma, and how I've been changed by it." Which is a very valid interpretation. But we can dig deeper and see that, given everything else we know about celestial beings losing their memories, names, and identities, Crowley is alluding to something far more horrific than just the scars left by flaming swords and halo-grenades.
These are the scars of a lobotomy. Something was taken from him, and he is aware of it.
He knows that his memory has been tampered with. Various people (Furfur, Saraqael) tell him that they recognize him, and of things they've done together. He has no recollection of them, but instead of getting agitated, he brushes it off and ignores it. This lack of questions from the guy who questions everything tells us that he already has the answers; not the memories, but the knowledge of why he doesn't have them.
Furthermore, when he's trying to get Jim to remember the something bad and Jim says it hurts, Crowley says:
I know. Do it anyway.
How does Crowley know that it hurts, to try to recall memories that have been taken out of your head?
Because he's been through it.
He has tried to remember, and some memories, like working on the Horsehead Nebula with Saraqael or monkeying around with Furfur, weren't worth the pain. Or perhaps it was pain on top of pain to remember what he had lost.
It is an especial testament to the cruelty of Heaven that he remembers going into battle, but not the bonds he formed with his friends. He remembers a million lightyear freestyle dive into a boiling pool of sulfur, but not the work he did on the Horsehead Nebula, a thing that brought him joy.
And now, the person he loves most in the world, his only refuge from the terror of his empty nightmares, from his malignant and creeping sense of unease that something is missing, has gone back to that place where his identity was so horribly violated that he lost his name.
How will our hero cope?
If you liked this meta, you will almost certainly like my meta on Continuity Errors.
For my thoughts on who Crowley may have been before the fall, go here.
For my thoughts on how this pertains to Metatron, go here.
As I continue to produce metas related to this theory, you'll be able to find them all here.
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