Rasputin In Popular Culture: Supernaturally Vigorous Man Refuses To Die.

Before kidnapping Sita, Ravana raped Rambha, Queen of the apsaras, and her husband Nalkuber cursed Ravana that if he ever raped another woman, his head would split in seven. This curse later protected Sita from the worst of Ravana’s torments. So I’d like a fic where Nalkuber goes off on Rama that if Ravana has raped Sita, his curse would have taken effect, and how dare Rama disregard a god’s curse, and what did Rambha suffer for then?

It lingers in Nalkuber’s memory, later; after all is said and done.

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good omens + richard siken quotes

“and you’re trying to choke down the feeling, and you’re trembling, but he reaches over and touches you like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you don’t have a name for”

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.  

We all know Crowley doesn’t actually shred the plants, right? Like he takes them into the other room and makes Big Scary Noises, sure, to scare the remaining plants. But you just know that he actually takes the bad plants and sets them Outside, pats them on the head, and says “You rebelled. You are now Fallen. Congratulations” and sometimes he decorates them with old pairs of sunglasses and tiny leather jackets intended for French bulldogs. Like I’m sorry but if you don’t think those plants are 100% a form of projection and coping about his issues with Heaven then you haven’t met Anthony Janthony Crowley

hello, yes, 911? I’d like to report this scene for personally victimizing me

LOOK AT CROWLEY’S FACE WHEN AZIRAPHALE BRANDISHES THE SWORD. THAT IS THE FACE OF A DEMON WHO THINKS HE’S ABOUT TO BETRAYED BY THE ANGEL HE LOVES.

Aziraphale looks at the sword like he knows he should be using that as a threat, but that’s DUMB, this is Crowley, and he has better threats! Like never speaking to him again!

And look at Crowley’s face when Aziraphale says that!

To quote @kedreeva: “Oh no he’s going to threaten to kill me himself…OH NO, IT’S WORSE.”

“Do something or I’ll never talk to you again!”

And then Crowley does! something! because he can’t abide the thought

It's a Buffalo calf indeed! Nadia Afgan (Shahana) retweeted a gif in which someone was trying to catch hold and control a Buffalo, so it's actually funnier as you said 😂😂😂

Hey TT! I hope you are doing great. In nava katta, katta= buffalo calf. Love from Pakistan

Oh! Thanks for clarifying! I knew that “katta” meant buffalo (because lol Shahana explained “doobi katta” in the last season) but I thought it also meant something that could be tied and untied (coz BiJaan said “maayke bhej doongi toh, kholti aur baandti rehna apne katte wahaan”) So when they say “nawa katta khul gaya” it actually means that a buffalo calf has been untied and is running free? Lmao that’s even funnier! 🤣🤣🤣

Mahabharat characters and ficlets therein: [1/?] 

Draupadi and Krishna

Insp: edits by @walburgablack and numerous edits by @chaanv  

It tires her. Being this constant “Instrument of Destiny”. Sometimes, she wishes to escape the grand plans that Divinity expects her to execute, by way of being a pawn.

Getting married to five men, being pledged like a commodity, and being the object of desire for lecherous eyes, Panchaali really has had it all, in all these years.

What next, Krishna?, she asks him.

All she gets is a meaningful silence, and a smile that only she can decipher.

It is all for the greater good, he answers.

His flute takes an identity of its own.

The tune is strange, she wonders.

And sure enough, it is. It seems to juxtapose The Maker and The Destroyer in one. As if were the music to which Shankara would perform his Tandava.

And then, she remembers.

Rudra had materialised in the Sabha the day she was presented there. The rage, her outburst, the disappointment, and of course…

Their silence.

There isn’t much to salvage here, Krishne. The flute seems to answer.

She swears she can feel the crescendo almost foretell the future, the stench of carrion flesh hits her nostrils, almost as tangible as her ears pick the tune of the one who was her likeness in nomenclature.

I shall make my efforts, Panchaali. He seems to read her mind.

Strangely, she doesn’t hope for the prophecy to fail. A fact, He seems to know for a fact. 

What else, Krishna?, she breathes.

The familiarity of the smile, and the endnotes of the dirge seem all too corporeal.

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i was making a lot of mistakes and then my archery instructor said:

“you make mistakes because you’re focusing on the target and not on your actions”

and i was like woah

thanks for giving me the best life advice i’ve ever gotten

Matilda (1996), dir. Danny DeVito