#the way Aeryn knows Crais has a thing for her but she doesn't give a flying fig

[this-is-a-love-story-isnt-it]

Farscape 3x07

Crais thought he was going to get Aeryn to himself, but she walks aboard accompanied by the love of her life. 🤣

#farscape #john crichton #aeryn sun #bialar crais #john x aeryn #this makes me giggle every time #the way Aeryn knows Crais has a thing for her but she doesn't give a flying fig #like 'oh. he's annoyed that John's here' #John's in the background like yeah i'm here #my gifs #my gifs: farscape

[dangermousie]

Farscape rewatch: Liars Guns and Money - 2x19-2x21 - meta part the first...

Liars, Guns and Money is my second favorite multiparter in all of Farscape, behind only We Are Screwed in season 4. Interestingly, they both involve Crichton on the ragged edge of sanity and a rescue of one member of the OTP by the other, willing to do anything it takes. 

In LGM it's Aeryn willing to do anything (including offering anything (by implication herself)) to get Crais to help to rescue John. In WASS it's John selling his soul to Scorpius. And of course, the insanity in LGM is literal but in WASS it's because John derails utterly when Aeryn is in danger. Before I get to character interactions, I want to mention how much I love the set design for these eps. The gorgeous golds and deep reds, and misty greys? 

Crichton has a huge self-sacrificial complex. When Scorpius offers to give back D'Argo's son in exchange for Crichton, he has no idea how effective a carrot he is dangling in front of John (and Scorpius never truly learns, does he, perhaps because he’s hampered by the fact that he’d sacrifice himself for nobody. He is hoping for D’Argo to turn John over, he’s not thinking Crichton would do it himself.) 

It's Crichton's own private way of self-destructing. He is, in a lot of ways, walking with so much guilt (because he cannot reconcile what he had become with his inner moral compass of his upbringing) and in a way the only value he sees is as 'victim' to other. Part of the reason he latches on to Aeryn so desperately is because of that same sense of guilt and nullity. She is his one link to sanity: I love the scene in the depository where he is completely losing it and he grabs her and desperately kisses her, as if she is his long drink of water, as if doing so clears his head. 

And he tries to tell her about his feelings but also about Scorpius, and he’s falling apart so hard and it’s painful to watch.

This is so Aeryn btw...and so John.

It’s actually a funny exchange that turns heartbreaking later on, as so many Farscape jokes tend to, when she really is ready to kill him later if that is the best outcome:

And even more horrifyingly, John actually ends up begging to be killed at the end of the three parter, something he was trying to avoid becoming the most he is hoping for and still beyond him:

https://dangermousie.tumblr.com/post/723680562432376832/still-sorting-through-my-million-caps-and-thoughts

I love how his love for Aeryn helps him navigate both trauma and insanity. In practical ways - like when he cannot coat Scorpius’ rods with explosives because the chip is fighting him, she does it for him but also in more intangible ways. Aeryn is the only one who is important enough to get through (of course when, as in DMD, even she finally cannot, that is when tragedy occurs). And that is true in later seasons, no matter how obsessed or catatonically destroyed he becomes (I am thinking of the end of PKW when it's Aeryn and his child who bring him out). Oh, and that scene when he desperately and incoherently wants to tell her how he feels. Because he can feel his inner self slipping and it feels as if it's almost the last chance. And she tells him he doesn't have to say it and his face where this is no comfort but a disappointment because he wanted to so badly. 

And the end of that part 1, kills me...when he tells her, so quietly and stumblingly, sounding so incredibly vulnerable 'I meant what I said...didn't say' (and he’s not even trying to say what it is, he’s beyond that) and she says she knows and it’s gentle and he is actually at peace with that now because this time he can process that she really does know. And she pulls his head down and puts it on her shoulder (this is such a their thing, he did it to her earlier; and I can’t tell you how much I needed the scene have that moment of touch-comfort at that moment). He is this beautiful broken thing, so far from what he started as but for a brief moment at peace. 

#farscape