[Tender, emotional music playing]

And no one is ever ready for the switch, and even after it happens they can never fully prepare themselves for what they’re going to get. Shane has learned that when he’s going to do that he should take them aside to give them the card rather than in front of people

Once Shane feels comfortable with Hayden as a genuinely good friend in his birthday card that year he writes out a whole thing about how he’s always wanted a best friend like other kids had but never had one and had accepted he never would, and then Hayden came into his life and gave him a level of love and friendship he never thought he would get and he loves everything about Hayden and can’t wait to be by his side as friends and brothers for the rest of their lives. Hayden fully breaks down and loses it, Jackie notices they’ve been gone a while and walks into the kitchen to see Hayden hugging Shane and sobbing into his shoulder. She raises her eyebrows at Shane and Shane just gives her the OK sign and goes back to rubbing Hayden’s back

Ilya learns about the card thing when it’s yunas birthday and he notices her opening Shane’s card like she’s deactivating a bomb. She stares silently as she reads it and Ilya starts freaking out a little when she starts to tear up and then pulls Shane in for a long silent hug. He looks at it later and sees that Shane wrote about how the last year made him realize over again how lucky he is to have someone as strong and supportive as her as a mother and he hopes to one day be half the parent to his own kids as she was to him

When it’s their first time having Ilya’s birthday together he’s legitimately nervous because this is his first Shane Card and he doesn’t know what to expect and part of him is afraid he’s built it up too much in his head and Shane won’t have as nice things to say as he did with other people. And then he opens the envelope and there’s no card but instead multiple pieces of paper because Shane couldn’t fit it all into a limited space. Ilya spends the better part of the next hour walking around the house reading it, taking breaks occasionally to cry or hyperventilate before going back to reading it because holy shit does Shane Hollander love him. Like he knew logically that Shane did but now he’s got pages and pages of Shane walking him through his feelings over the last decade of their life and every moment he remembered and cherished. Shane finally catches up to him and he’s on the floor of the kitchen, face a splotchy red mess, chugging Gatorade because he’s dehydrated from crying

C'Mon, You Know You Wanna...

instead, it became the foundation of the new universe, and crowley and aziraphale's love—as one post beautifully put it—were the big bang.

we saw that everyone and everything that vanished turned into stardust, miracles themselves consist of it, or rather it's all about manipulation of matter and energy.

the laws of thermodynamics clearly describe that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only be transformed. god created the universe out of herself, everything in existence is an extension of her, meaning that if we combine current particle science with religious theory, we arrive at the higgs field and higgs boson, sometimes (very inaccurately) referred to as the god particle.

without going into detail, it's an explanation as to how certain particles gain mass, because without that process there would be, well, pretty much nothing. no stars, no planets, nothing with mass. just pure energy.

so when god created the first universe, it was a playground for herself out of herself, a source of amusement. she describes it as a game of cards in a dark room with a dealer who smiles all the time; the house ALWAYS wins and the game is rigged from the start.

destroying said universe was always part of the story, six thousand years and that's it. but "destruction" does not mean it gets destroyed in the way many think, it cannot be destroyed. so what does happen? a change of states, transformations from one kind of energy into another, back into literal and metaphorical stardust.

everything the universe was remains, nothing just vanishes and disappears without a trace. the new universe she created is still an extension of her, there's no alternative, but aligning with crowley and aziraphale's request, she does not meddle. she does not turn it into a story, she simply lets it exist, no celestial intervention. real free will, nothing after death, no pain, no punishment.

you could think of celestials and their planes as a specific kind of matter, one which does not come to be in the new universe but was present in the old one. their energy remains. they remain.

changed, yes, and different, but still the same they have always been. their love is real now, it doesn't serve a purpose like it did before, it's about crowley and aziraphale, anthony and asa, two beings who will fall in love with each other in every universe, time after time after time.

-and here be many spoilers shead-

we got so many cool bits!

Long haired general aziraphale?! Oh baby that's juicyyyy no wonder he's so against destruction and war

Crowley not recognising him and aziraphale pretending not to?! Idk?! We always thought that that shock came for aziraphale in the garden of eden, but no. Thar makes that scene hit even harder now.

Ichor blood confirmedddddd

Aziraphale and the whole "getting the Bentley back" sequence like... Who is she?! Confident, cheeky, pulling a trickster-god- rigged-deal with a human? Centuries of doing the "wrong thing" but disguising it as the "heavenly thing" culminated here. Crowley must be so proud

Multiple silver fox crowleys 🤌🤌🤌🤌

The never ending pizza jesus gave the people

Lilac-eyed archangel aziraphale 🙏

The ending: Crowley seemingly got what he wanted, just the two of them, the bookstore, finally peace and quiet. And the realisation that it's utterly meaningless without humanity. Crowley getting god to listen to his question. Getting his wish, to get rid of the rigged, toxic system. To let his beautiful stars and nebulas unfold, governed only by the laws of the universe.

Aziraphale and Crowley finally succeeding in what they've always strived towards: protecting humanity. Their beloved earth

The "I'll find you in any lifetime" tropeeeeeeeee oh my goddddd. 💯💯💯💯 I know the fandom feared a human ending and while I get the grief, I'm like ... They got to be together, unburdened by the Sides. And it was an echo of how they met at the Beginning: someone deeply in love with the stars and someone very much charmed by that. Pulled into orbit. Oh, my heart

Arthur Eddington easter egg, a movie where we also got to see DT ugly cry homosexually

“you were the best of us"

URIEL IS SO HOT THE BRAIDS AT THE BEGINNING THE JEANS AT THE END NOT TO BE A LESBIAN BUT JESUS CHRIST ETC

the last ten minutes were very gay and gooey and did in fact make me feel happy, Asa put on a bow tie for their date!!

Why was every single person in that bar at the end a total babe

Adam and Jesus having a beer together

Jesus wearing birkenstocks and socks

Art by @wingly-coded