#anyway i got off topic. Where was I?

[jessicas-pi]

After several polls of coming in second or third or fourth or whateverth place, Bo-Katan's Obitine Flashbacks finally won!

Bo-Katan doesn’t know specifics, but she does know it hasn’t been more than a month.

She lowers her voice. “I’m sorry for your loss, Wren. I know you and the Jedi were… close…”

And Sabine Wren drops her face into her arms, bursting into tears and then apologizing through her hysterical sobs, which tells Bo-Katan exactly how close they were.

Bo-Katan is hit with a feeling of deja vu, like she’s done this before.

Wait.

No.

She has.

Ha ha. Fun.

This is just exactly what she needed right now, another woman brokenhearted over a Jedi.

And she thought the time with her sister had been awkward.

Wren is still rambling, half-incoherently as she rubs her eyes and tries to pull herself together, a mix of excuses and explanations and aching, soul-deep pain.

She says enough to give Bo-Katan another realization.

Unless Bo has entirely misheard—not only did Wren have feelings for the Jedi boy—not only did the Jedi boy have feelings for Wren in return—not only did they confess to each other—they also said the vows, which is, Bo is pretty sure, farther than Satine ever got with her Jedi, and then the thought of Satine and Kenobi gives Bo-Katan the most horrifying notion yet.

“Oh, my gods, are you pregnant?”

Sabine sits up, eyes huge, mouth hanging open in speechless bewilderment.

“Am I… no!”

Her answer is entirely sincere, and Bo-Katan slumps in relief.

Manda be praised. We don’t need more Korkies.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

i don't know what order to start Dissecting, so i'll just start with:

it's absolutely fascinating how the dynamic Wally & Barnaby had - to my knowledge - before the update, and a dynamic i'd seen speculated elsewhere and generally accepted, has been completed turned on its head

see, given that Wally is the "main character" and Barnaby is classified as "his best friend", i got the feeling that Barnaby kind of... tags along on Wally's 'shenanigans'. that he's the sidekick, the best friend. especially since their dynamic has been previously & briefly described as "Barnaby is very polite to Wally." he's the Companion.

but the audios sorta paint a reverse picture. in the Interview, when Barnaby enters stage right, he completely bowls over Wally's introduction and dominates the interview. when the interviewer asks how the two of them are handling the fame, even outright asking Wally, Barnaby doesn't hesitate to answer the question himself, and only about himself. Wally doesn't get another word in edge-wise until the interviewer explicitly singles Wally out.

(now, an argument could be made that Barnaby knew that Wally was somewhat overwhelmed with all of the questions, and tried to take the reins to give him a reprieve. but, considering that the interview seems to be very early on the possible timeline - like, very soon after Welcome Home debuted - i don't think this is likely. i doubt Barnaby and Wally would've had the time to solidify their dynamic or really get to know each other that well yet)

and Barnaby continues to take point in pretty much all of their other conversations, too. like in the mystery Howdy/Barnaby/Wally audio, their interaction gives off the vibes that Wally is Barnaby's sidekick, his tag-along.

(on a related tangent, it's fascinating how the website described the episodes as "[beginning] with Wally introducing the focus or theme for the day before coming across other characters who would join him on his escapades until the end of the day." but from pretty much everything we've seen so far, it seems like He's the one who's just along for the ride, bouncing from neighbor shenanigan to neighbor shenanigan instead of having his own adventures.

of course, if the 14 audios are present time, which is honestly somewhat likely, this could be because the show isn't running. they aren't doing episodes - they're just existing, doing their things. no need for Wally to take point in any way shape or form. tangent over)

in the 14 audios with Barnaby, he doesn't even acknowledge Wally until the very end - which, of course, could be because that's how the scenes are set up. except that in some of them, the characters do directly acknowledge Wally's presence outside of the endings. Eddie in 5-14, Howdy and Poppy in 1-14, and Frank in 4-14 (technically, since he was infodumping to Wally at the very start before Barnaby interrupted). you'd think that a guy would try to include his best friend a little more!

maybe i'm reading into it too much. & given what we know about Wally as a character, it would make sense for Barnaby to be the go-getter Main Guy of the two. but it really seems like its Barnaby & Wally instead of Wally & Barnaby. he's just kinda... there. going along with whatever Barnaby is up to.

but also, on the other side of things - & it's occurring to me as i type this, it's interesting how in a lot of audios, Barnaby seems to seek Wally out. in "Just So", he shows up to fetch Wally. in 4-14, Barnaby interrupts Frank and Wally's gardening session, almost as if he's stopping by to check on his little buddy. in 7-14, Barnaby calls Julie's house (presumably) searching for Wally, or at least checking in once again. something to consider in all of this!

[trainwreckgenerator]

ok i KNOW this is an insane topic to make a tierlist about but i was thinking about milsiril again so. dungeon meshi characters ranked by how pro-euthanasia i think they are

clarifications:

"pro-murder" here doesnt necessarily mean "likes killing". this chart is about how each character views the ethical ramifications of taking a human life, and some of the people in "pro-murder" are there because they would kill someone outside of a combat situation if they thought it would have a greater benefit, such as saving the lives of many others. the rest of them (like thistle, cithis, and the orcs) are there because they are ready to kill whenever to get whatever they want, which is a very different ethical stance but still fits in the same category for the purpose of the chart.

"pro-euthanasia" means having no qualms over killing something/someone if there is an absolute certainty that the individual will never be able to regain a livable quality of life. this is the only category outside of, uh, murder, that doesn't necessarily require consent for the euthanasia to be carried out.

"it's an option" characters would perform euthanasia if asked, or would otherwise condone consensual euthanasia.

"only in the most extreme" characters would only consider the option as an absolute last resort, once every other possibility had been exhausted. these characters would keep someone alive against their wishes to try to save them.

"absolutely against it" characters would never under any circumstances kill someone they didn't want dead. they would sooner let them bleed out or otherwise suffer against their wishes than perform requested euthanasia, and would protest the performance of consensual euthanasia by others.

[pbpsbff]

sometimes im like wow parkner is so wildly uncanon these 2 have never interacted. and then i think about the spider-man ride at disneyland where both are listed as engineers and i'm like this is proof. they kiss

[anxiously-sidequesting]

I personally love and obsess over disillusioned and self-isolating protagonists which is one of the reasons why I advocate for a Young Wizard who just leans so much into their role as the Savior that they're now just this broken down individual who now genuinely shares everyone's fears and legends of them of being this Ultra Powerful, Non-Human, Above-All-The-Peasants Legend Amongst Men. Being picked apart and analyzed (INCORRECTLY might I add) by strangers and people who fear/hate/revere you, no matter where you go or what you do, over and over and OVER it just literally whittles away at who you used to be, what used to make you happy and now you're replaced with what everyone made you into. Not You, but a Hero.

But you know what's even better 😈😈😈 a wizard who cracks in a different way and is now just baaaareeely holding it together. A wizard who just is not All There anymore. A wizard who's Good Maybe, but someone who genuinely gives you a GOOD REASON to fear a switch in allegiance. Someone who reminds you that your entire life depends on their mood

Give me Harley Quinn YW, give me a YW who cackles and shrieks in joy as they batter the evil to the ground, give me a YW who pushes at the very edge of the EXTREMES even when they don't need to. I want a YW who doesn't carry around a gleaming sword, or a mystical staff, but a bat with nails studded inside or a rusty machete; I want poems and songs of not a Hero but a wolf in sheep's clothing who just barely gets by in masquerading as the Commoners. An unhinged YW is the second to best Bad Ending you could ever get from this situation and I want everyone to think about this actually

[kicktwine]

oh so alisaie’s exaggerated bully behavior is 80% fanon. saying this she casually picks up a large rock

[dazais-guardian-angel]

I just wanna say that. there’s something incredibly morbid and gross about the fact that bones took away literally the only thing Sigma had to his name before the casino: his past. And not only his past itself, but his right to narrate his own past. Instead, the TWO lines they do keep about it (about him naming himself Sigma, and finally finding his one place to call home, the casino).... are given to Fyodor to say. Fyodor, his most recent manipulator in a long, long line of manipulators.

And not even just his past, but by extension so many of his strong, strong emotions about himself and what he’s been through and how they’ve made him into the person he is now: his fear, his sorrow, his desperation, his determination, his righteous indignation. His pain. The majority of that is all gone from the anime.

Sigma barely has a story of his own; his past, his suffering, and his emotions are the only things he has claim to, that make him who he is. And bones took even those away from him. Flattening him into an empty piece of paper, ironically, just like he was born from and as.

[todayisafridaynight]

so magical that yakuza 1 and shadow the hedgehog came out the same year........ 2005 the best year for sega honestly.....

[broke-on-books]

☕

The live action Scooby-Doo movies?

I did not see this ask until RIGHT now (first time on desktop since crab day, second time since Nov 5 2020 [which was DOUBLY experience since I got my phone taken the same day]) so I'm going to assume this ask got eaten on mobile because tumblr, HOWEVER you poked a bear with this ask anon (as I'm sure you knew when asking) SO without further ado: my Scooby Doo live action opinions

So when you say 'live action Scooby-Doo movies' I'm assuming you're talking about the James Gunn films, starting with Scooby-Doo (2002) followed by Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, just due to like, generally popularity and also the fact that I have actually seen those films. However shoot another ask if you wanted me to include Curse of the Lake Monster in this (because I will if anyone cares and turn this into a live-action scooby dissertation, i'd just need to like. watch the movie first) But anyways where I'm going with this is that this post is about the Gunn movies aka the ones with SMG, Freddie Prinze Jr., Linda Cardellini, and ofc our #1 man, Matthew Lilliard.

Okay so my take on these movies is... complicated. I wouldn't say it's as complicated as my feelings towards SDMI, because I watched the live actions way less as a kid and generally care less about them, but still no matter how much shit I throw at these two movies there are parts that I generally like (even love) that stops me from totally condemning them wholesale. Like the fact that these movies are FUNNY! There's so many moments from this duology that are just beyond iconic "like, that's one of my favorite names!" the whole thing with Scooby in the dress at the airport, ET. CETERA (like I can go on!)

The Gunn movies are genuinely SO fun and I can 100% see and understand how they've stood so well in the public view as a representation of Scooby. HOWEVER, this is where you start to see my problems with them. For the general American, (because that is the audience I'm familiar with) ESPECIALLY millennials and younger, who happen to make up the majority of both people on this site AND people I talk about Scooby with in real life, these movies, and the elements they introduced as "quintessential scooby tropes" are the base of their understanding of the Scooby franchise, along with likely some miscellaneous WAY episodes and maybe SDMI.

Which is where I get pissed off. In the pushing of the narrative of "breaking away" from the Scooby norm, Gunn basically invents (aka totally makes up) an idea of what classic era Scooby was like, cementing an idea of classic Scooby into the public mind that is totally disingenuous and just straight up false. For example, in attempting to portray Daphne as having taken strides to be seen more seriously in solving mysteries and defending herself, it pushes the narrative that in the classic era she WASN'T taken seriously, and only existed as a damsel-in-distress prop of a character, which is just not true??? Like yes, Daphne is clumsy, that's a part of her character, and her friends (because, fun fact, the gang ARE friends) joke about it sometimes because that's what friends DO. Framing that in some kind of sexist "that's all she does" lens is just total bull, especially as gang members fall into secret passageways/get lost etc. in WAY ALL THE DAMN TIME because that's how the plot functions! Like are we calling Velma ditzy for losing her glasses every other episode? Of course not, and Fred falls into passageways all the time, not to MENTION Shaggy and Scooby and all they get up to. Also one last thing on the topic of Daphne, like this idea of her mystery solving skills not being respected by the gang is just so supremely bullshit it amazes me sometimes, especially when she was the LEADER (or leader adjacent) through pretty much all of her appearances in the 1980s [Not that James Gunn could look at '80s era Scooby without spitting on it, but I digress]

AND THIS IS JUST DAPHNE! Like the perceptions pushed towards Fred (and Velma, but mostly Fred) through these movies are just as bad! Like okay, with Fred---In these movies Fred is just an asshole. I hate Gunn Movies!Fred. I mean yeah he can be funny but it's almost always so mean! Almost nothing makes me madder than a mean Fred by the way. If he's putting other gang members down (even halfway, like with his whole "dorky chicks like you turn me on too" line, which... ew) then to me something has gone very, very, VERY, wrong in your basic understanding of Frederick Herman Jones as a character. Like he's the cheerleader! He puts himself in between his friends and danger! He loves nets, and traps, and Elvis impressions, and wrestling, and the trapeze, and cars, and most of all he LOVES sharing the things he loves with his friends! (Sometimes to a bit of an extreme. No one wants to hear about your net facts, Fred) And the live action movies just don't understand that at all. And I know there's maybe something to say I suppose in that some of those aspects of his characterization hadn't been "established yet" by the time "Scooby-Doo" came out in 2002. But it's there if you look. For Fred Jones, being the leader means being the caretaker, (he's the Mom friend what can I say) and any version where he's cruel and arrogant and just DOESN'T CARE about his friends in the way he's shown to in the Gunn movies is just so far from Fred to me it's not even funny. And what makes it even worse for me is that this (or at least something similar) is the idea of Fred that has really spread to the popular culture. Just the "leader", the jock that makes the rules, the one that [insert X adaptation here] finally gave a personality and made interesting (something that has been said more times than I can count for pretty much every gang member, save Shaggy and Scooby).

And I haven't even touched on Velma, and how they gave her a bit of a early 2000s smart superiority girl complex against Daphne, plus the whole makeover thing and etc. etc. The Gunn Movies are pretty much what would happen if you took someone who hadn't seen Scooby since they were 7 years old (and honestly had a pretty negative outlook against it then) and tried to "fix" it, only his memory was so bad he just made up problems (and threw in a good helping of early 2000s style sexism with it) convincing pretty much the entirety of the popular culture that said problems exist and that Gunn was absolutely brilliant for fixing them (and then bringing up said "problems" whenever anyone wants to talk about Scooby) and this entire rant has been without even fucking MENTIONING what is probably the reason you, anonymous tumblr user sent this ask in the first place, to I, Swishy "Scrappy Doo Redemption Arc" Broke-on-books (dot tumblr dot com), which is his HIGHLY SUCESSFUL and utterly sadistic character assassination of my number one man, Scrappy Doo.

And I am going to try my damnedest here not to get totally into my highly passionate opinions over what James Gunn did to Scrappy in the first of his Scooby movies and how thoroughly it has pissed me the fuck off because I have been writing this post for over an hour now and if we start to really get into my feelings on this topic it will certainly be a couple of hours more but like. That Fucking Bitch. I give James Gunn personally a solid eighty-five percent of the blame for making my life as a Scrappy Doo fan UTTERLY unbearable with this stupid fucking movie alone, and just his Scrappy crimes would honestly be enough for me to say that I hate this movie, not even considering the numerous Scooby crimes I've been talking about here for the past million paragraphs, but the part about this movie that makes me the MOST mad the most pissed off is that it's actually a good fucking movie. James Gunn wrote two hilarious and entertaining movies that have become beloved in the popular culture for their successes in that arena, while at the same time pissing all over the core themes and messages of the franchise of which it was based, that of friendship.

TLDR; The Live Action Scooby Doo movies (written by James Gunn) are highly entertaining and fun pieces of media to watch, and are widely loved by the general public and looked at with fondness and nostalgia because of that. However, as a hardcore Scooby Doo fan (writing that phrase sounds so ridiculous but oh well) the existence of these movies and their impact on the popular culture can be extremely frustrating (despite any personal nostalgia said fan may have) due to their spreading of a misinformed picture of what "typical Scooby Doo" looks like. This picture is especially frustrating due to the fabrication or exaggeration of problems present in classic Scooby (such as sexism in regards to the girls), as well as giving more ammunition to other problems in Scooby fandom (such as oversexualization, and sexualization in general, which no one wants to see in regards to their children's cartoons, like HONESTLY.) Discussions of sexism and sexualization in Scooby (both of which ARE present and are issues, although not at their worst in WAY) can often lead to an overlooking of the issues that are very present and clear in WAY and have continued since then with far too little resistance (I'm 100% talking about the racism here) HOWEVER that topic deserves at least a dozen posts of its own that I am no way informed or qualified enough to even begin to think about writing. The Gunn Movies are frustrating to many longtime Scooby fans because of these reasons, but for me, and fellow Scrappy Doo fans there is also the added aspect of the demonization of Scrappy Doo in the live action movies and the affects that has had on the popular culture as well, making it uniquely inhospitable to like or enjoy the character of Scrappy. End post.

[applestorms]

morality in the world of good omens

so i wrote another (admittedly very messy) essay on good omens not long ago right after watching season 2 but after finishing that, rewatching all of both seasons multiple times, and reading through the book, i have a couple more distinct ideas to get out...somewhere...if only for my own sanity. this is me throwing my thoughts into the internet before i pop, if you will. just 3 sections, below the cut.

1. environment, characters, & transformative fandom creations

to start this post off a bit more broadly, i've been thinking a lot recently about transformative fandom and the reasons why we write fanfiction/create semi-original works in the first place, as well as why certain aspects of fandom (writing, art, analysis, etc.) will be more appealing to me for certain shows/series than others. correct me if you have a totally different view of this, but in my experience i've found that i tend to naturally gravitate towards different parts of fandom depending on what the original medium of the story was- podcasts tend to lead to some of the most interesting art trends, for example, since there's more room for interpretation and character design tends to be more of an ongoing community project than something set in stone like for a tv show with live human actors.

in my own observation, i've noticed that a lot of the really big & excitable fandoms, the ones that generate tons & tons of fanworks more naturally (a.k.a. just because of the story itself & not other factors like a pre-existing franchise or hype about new great gay representation, etc.) tend to surround stories that fall into a kind of "sweet spot" that makes the creation of fanworks really appealing. if you've ever wondered why there are so many ravenous artists bending over backwards to draw gorgeous fanart for stuff like homestuck or south park or even minecraft youtubers, it's likely because those stories all fall into a sweet spot for drawing, with character designs that are recognizable at a glance and yet still simple enough that there is plenty of room for personal creative touches. (think also, if you're familiar with such kinds of homestuck terms: hyperflexible mythologies, A4:1524, and/or this archive link cause the official thing is down now for some reason)

the conclusion i've come to is thus that even something as basic as the original medium of a story can dictate a lot about what kinds of fan activities are more common or popular within said story's fandom.

so, back to good omens- for me, this all relates back because of a question i've been messing with in my head recently, about why i've been less interested in fanfiction for good omens than i have been for the last few fandoms i've been, almost all of which have basically broken my ao3 bookmarks.

this question has been fucking with me for a while now, largely because i'm not entirely sure what's motivating it. a lot of times i can figure out pretty easily why i might personally not be interested in some parts of fandom, but that's not really the case here. from what i've seen this fandom seems to be pretty mixed in terms of age, & the writing that i have read is certainly no worse than i've seen elsewhere, perhaps even better in some places- and yet, i can't seem to get entirely into it, even getting frustrated as i can't find something to my tastes for an ao3 bedtime story as i've grown so accustomed. what caught me off guard is that this was an issue that i ran into while watching season 1 as well, back when the series was still quite popular but not blowing up like it is right now.

a lot of this may seem like (and likely is, at least in part) basic overthinking, but i mentioned it all here because the answer i eventually came to is reminiscent of my previous reflections above on the nature of fandom & how/why fanworks are created.

a couple paragraphs above, i used the example of art as an example of how fandoms that generate a lot of original artwork will often do the most when the original story falls into a sweet spot of character design, but notably i think that this sentiment applies to a lot more than just art. if you've ever seen the copious amounts of kpop & hockey rpf fanfiction that lives on ao3, it should be clear that this applies to writing too.

i wrote this essay a while back responding to an observation about the lack of a more extensive symbolic language in fanfiction & i've toyed around with the idea more since, particularly in considering the question of why a lot of what we see as the staples of fanfiction exist in the first place. in that post, my response largely revolved around an argument of why we create fanfiction- namely, that fanfiction is created as in tandem with deeper analysis of the original story/series, as a way of trying to practically apply character analysis to a new context.

the key part of that last sentence to me is how a lot of this revolves around character analysis (and shipping, but really it's the characters that motivate the shipping in most cases so. same difference).

i tend to instinctively separate fanfiction into two separate categories: fanfiction that is based out of the original world/canon of the story (including but not limited to fix-its, deeper analysis fics that take a scene & extrapolate from it, continuations, etc.) and fanfiction that takes the characters from the original story & plops them in an alternate universe/AU. while i separate these out as two distinct categories of fanfiction, i should also clarify that i don't think these two groups are necessarily equal in terms of number of fics- rather, the vast majority of fanfiction tends to be AUs, keeping the original characters & changing any & all aspects of the world around them. again, this may vary depending on the story & Vibe of the fandom at the time, stories like game of thrones or harry potter or homestuck might have a lot more in the canon category by nature of any major dissatisfactions the fandom has with how the original story was told, but in most cases AUs are more popular. this was a lot of the basis behind my argument that fanfiction is created as character analysis in fact, since the characters are the most important part that carries over from original story to fanwork, as well as can end up being one of the most debated/scorned parts when it comes to fandom drift (i.e. "that's out of character"/"he wouldn't do that"/and all other such arguments about fanon vs. canon characterization).

basically, my conclusion in this case was that i was a lot less interested in gomens fic largely because i have a really hard time separating the characters from the world in the case of this particular story. aziraphale & crowley being an angel & a demon and dealing with all of the bullshit of their world when it comes to heaven & hell are such integral parts of their characters in my mind that i have a much harder time getting behind AU fanfiction that plops them in a totally different context. it's just a much harder sell for keeping the characters in character for me. (i also tend to not like s2 fix-its just cause, idk they're just not my style, which is where a lot of the recent blast of energy has led us.) to clarify, this is not a judgement, just a matter of personal preference and a reflection of why, even if a lot of fandoms will look the same from the outside/involve the same things like art, fic, etc., an individual's mileage can vary wildly when it comes to how they interact with different things online.

*additional note, also for clarification: i do want to acknowledge that a lot of this depends on pure popularity as well, popular fandoms will often end up with basically everything in terms of fanworks just by nature of how many people are interacting with & thinking deeply about the story. my point here is more along the lines of the fact that even within the more well-populated fandoms, certain types of fanwork will often Stick Out more to me than others, or even be visibly much more common than in other fandoms, due largely to the original medium/structure of how the story.

so, speaking of aziraphale & crowley in more depth now- why does the world of good omens feel like such an integral part of their personalities when it comes to characterization? up next, let's talk about morality within the context of good omens' perhaps surprisingly secular take on heaven & hell.

2. the amorality of heaven & hell (ft. the crowley quote apples you know the one)

(warning in advance that this section may be a bit limited since i'm not going to get super far (or very far at all, really) into the whole religious-analysis aspect of good omens.)

i've been binge-reading the original pterry & gaiman book for good omens over the last few days and it's been very fun seeing all the slight changes between the tv show & the original. you can really see the hand of the original creators in how the tv show was translated, even just by looking at which parts made it and which parts were deemed worth cutting out. i suppose having one of the original creators right there helping build everything really helps make a book -> show translation work, since the ASOUE tv series was also pretty well received- something about knowing what's the core of the series & truly important to keep in, and having more time to tell the story itself?

anyways, i have a short list of notes that i've been taking as i read, conversations that stand out to me or footnotes that particularly amused me, but i keep coming back to one line that stood out to me quite early on. in context, this line comes from crowley during the conversation where he is first attempting to fully convince aziraphale about stopping armageddon, specifically when they're talking about exerting equal forces on warlock to make him normal:

"You're saying the child isn't evil of itself?" [Aziraphale] said slowly. "Potentially evil. Potentially good, too, I suppose. Just this huge powerful potentiality, waiting to be shaped," said Crowley. He shrugged. "Anyway, why're we talking about this good and evil? They're just names for sides. We know that."

(pg. 67)

"They're just names for sides." if i had to pick one line to sum up the view on religious morality of this series, this would likely be it.

on the one hand, i tend to interpret a lot gomens' take on heaven & hell within the context of its political stance, something that is particularly obvious through a line from gabriel in s2e2 where he tries to clarify to aziraphale that heaven isn't trying to hurt job directly, but instead is just not stopping hell from doing horrible things to him. while there may be some additional nuance to add to this take within the context of british politics that i don't really know well enough to add about, i'm inclined to see this from the side of my own familiar american politics, which might hold some weight considering how long mr. gaiman's lived around here. point is, my current interpretation of that line is that it helps in more clearly establishing the analogy of heaven & hell as the story moves forward into newer seasons and thus more contemporary politics, equating heaven with mainstream liberal politics & politicians and hell with conservatives.

this stance seems to be emphasized even more in the tv show than the book which makes sense considering its been coming out more recently, and especially in season 2 which is still quite caught up in a lot of quarantine-based reflection. (the tv show puts a lot more emphasis on heaven & hell in general, actually, perhaps initially a byproduct of actually being able to see those environments in their entirety and all the angels & demons that populate them- but we'll get to that.)

the book takes a slightly different stance that, fittingly, seems more reflective of the time it came out. in particular, i was struck a lot more when reading the book by adam's rise (fall?) to power, and how much of it was motivated by a burgeoning nervousness/pessimism about climate change and the anxieties of younger generations that comes with inheriting an earth that feels so fucked up. honestly if anything it's only gotten more relevant in that respect, what with the current vibe on the internet & the hopelessness of the doomer gen z gang, but it also has a distinctly different flavor to me from the tv show, which i think is largely because it's less connected to Formal politics since again we see a whole lot less of heaven & hell as such distinct, bureaucratic entities.

instead, there is a very distinctly amoral aspect to heaven & hell that we get through lines like the one above and especially from characters like crowley. this is why i argue that good omens, despite having so many religious elements, is such a deeply secular take, especially when it comes to its ethics & morality- Good and Evil, notably with the capital letters in this case, has very little to do with actual actions and much more to do with the name that you stamp on top of said actions. heaven & hell and the angels & demons that we see directing and watching and generally fucking with aziraphale & crowley throughout the story are distinctly separate from humanity, and as we see even more as the story progresses, distinctly unaware about what it even means to be a human, in both a deeper philosophical & very basic and literal sense. Good and Evil is simply another name for the sides- and thus the true ethics is something separate, and based in a deeply human experience.

in my opinion this is also why aziraphale & crowley, lovers of humanity and also to some degree spokespersons of it from how much they've "gone native," tend to be so deeply at odds with both heaven & hell and always end up agreeing with each other over their own supposed sides. what makes aziraphale & crowley so distinctly different is that they ascribe to the same ethics & morality that humanity does, or at the very least are trying to figure out ethics & morality & How to Be a Good Person in the same horribly messy way that humans do, separating them from the black & white "this side Good & this side Bad," logic that the rest of heaven & hell instinctively ascribe to.

there's a lot of nuance here, which is also why i think there is such an emphasis on moral ambiguity (and love, but we'll get to that) throughout season 2. the story of job, grave robbing, & questionable attempts at matchmaking- aziraphale is working through a lot of Shit right now when it comes to trying to figure out what the Good thing actually fucking is, and i think it's key that a lot of that is motivated by crowley himself. crowley might'e been cast out of heaven for asking too many questions, but aziraphale is there & listening to them & giving them the serious thought they deserve, and that can't be overlooked.

sidenote: i couldn't figure out a place to shove this in, but i also wanna point out that a lot of this is tied to the idea of growing over time too. on the same page as the quote transcribed above is another line from crowley leading up to aziraphale's question that puts a lot of emphasis on the fact that warlock is going to be a product of nurture, not nature. again, this is an argument against basic black & white assigned-at-birth morality for the ability of humans to grow & change over time and be influenced by the people around them.

it's notable that despite adam's supposed origin as a Son of Satan, what really gets him to stop the apocalypse in the end is the fact that he doesn't really give a shit about all this big plans but instead just wants to hang around his friends. there's a lot of emphasis in the book placed on how beautiful & nice tadfield is as a place for a young kid to grow up, how well loved & fiercely protected it as as something beloved to adam. while he might be overwhelmed when faced with the full picture of how horrible the world can be, ultimately what he cares about is loving & taking care of the people & places that he grew up learning were precious, and the only way to do that is to keep growing & changing yourself within that world and trying to help it also grow into something better, not throw it all away just for the slightest chance that you could restart. a message worth taking the time to think about, at the absolute very least.

3. finding morality w/in humanity: crowley & aziraphale and speculation for s3

i have complicated feelings about both aziraphale & crowley throughout a lot of the show and especially in season 2. i think a lot of people, myself included, are inclined to see crowley as the voice of reason in this season, and for good reason- as i mentioned before, a lot of aziraphale's deeper questioning of the status quo and goodness (Goodness) as a whole is motivated by questions from crowley.

i kiiind of mentioned this in my previous essay, but to state it more clearly, my take on crowley is that he's arriving at the right answer for the wrong reasons, and, conversely, aziraphale is arriving at the wrong answer for... kind of also the wrong reasons but also slightly for the right reasons. let me explain.

crowley is clearly much more aware of the flaws in both heaven & hell than aziraphale is, which seems to be the basis behind a lot of his motivation in asking aziraphale so many questions in the first place. he's also, as maggie & nina point out in s2e6, deeply lonely, often running away or getting ready to fight literally anyone that isn't aziraphale (or humans, but that's a little more complicated). from his reaction to beelz & gabriel getting together, i think it's pretty clear that he still hasn't entirely given up on the whole alpha centauri idea, and it makes sense- as i said in that last essay, crowley basically won the argument at the end of the previous season when it comes to aziraphale & crowley, "making [their] own side," so he doesn't have much reason to face any of his personal fears until maggie & nina basically point out that they exist directly to his face. once they do point it out, however, he's very motivated to act & does so almost immediately, even after hearing what aziraphale has to tell him and being pretty thoroughly devastated by it.

my point here is that crowley is correct in seeing the toxicity of both heaven & hell, he's just flawed and largely motivated by fear (up for debate if that's all it is, but i certainly think it's a big part of it) in his desire to run away from it all. it's not quite armageddon, again he's going more flight > fight here, but he's still ultimately giving up and that's not a great conclusion.

on the other hand, as some others on this site have pointed out, aziraphale is certainly showing a lot of strength in his willingness to keep fighting & try to change things for the better, but it's not hard to see how that belief has been twisted. one of aziraphale's biggest flaw in motivation at this point imo is that he doesn't just believe in goodness but Goodness, the kind that's tied to heaven always being right & all actions being morally Good so long as they're done under the name of heaven, and that clearly also isn't great.

thus what i think the both of these two really need ultimately is that deeper connection to humanity, and the ethics born from humans interacting with humans. we can already see how strong these two are when they collaborate, even when they're doing their absolute best to be as subtle as possible, but what i think they need is to once again be grounded by humanity, not to get so caught up in the bullshittery of heaven & hell and Good & Evil, but once again find a goodness defined by the world that they mutually love so much and stick with it.

i keep tossing a question around in my head about whether or not aziraphale & crowley are going to end up human by the end of this series. it feels natural that they would, they're already so at home and in love with earth & around humanity, but i'm also not entirely sure if that would be a happy ending for them considering how long they've watched & loved the world as it's changed. perhaps taking this post into account is another push towards humanity as a happy ending, not running away to a cottage to get away from the world (i just can't see running away to a cottage to be together as as happy ending, sorry- it might work for beelz & gabriel but not for aziraphale & crowley), but choosing to settle down within that world that is so dear.

[orcelito]

Every day 98 wolfwood's line "It's a long story, although it's kind of a short one" plays in my head

[wandaxpietro]

i like that it's a relatively popular (as in i have seen several people draw it; not many in the grand scheme of things but more than a handful!) headcanon for wanda to be chubby bcuz it feels so right to me. i need her btw

[puppys-rhythm-heaven]

the fact that neurotypicals exist will always be baffling to me honestly like. they can just focus without struggling??? n don't think constantly??? n don't hyperfixate on things??? sounds fake-

[peapod20001]

Idk I just find it really funny when I go in an ocs tag and can see the awkward period where I KNOW how they look but can’t EXECUTE it yet