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vidavalor · 1 year

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The Blitz, Part 3 Theory: The clues that suggest what it might be about & how it's affected what's come after it

I rewatched 2.04/The Blitz, Part 2 last night and a moment stood out to me that made me think I have an idea of what might happen in the flashback we all seem to have collectively agreed is almost certainly in S3-- The Blitz, Part 3.

When Crowley & Aziraphale are in the magic shop and Glozier is there in the background, the camera jumps to a pretty significant reaction shot for Glozier when Aziraphale tells Crowley that he has a Derringer hidden in a hollowed-out book in the bookshop. I think everyone sees that bit as important-- it's a literal Chekhov's gun sitting out there for the future story, after all-- but I was thinking about why it matters that one of the Zombie Nazis overheard this when they're... ya know... zombies. Their methods of murder tend to be a little more direct, yeah? lol What do they need a gun for when they eat people to death? But then it hit me why it will matter that Glozier heard this... it's not about the Zombie Nazis, exactly. It's about Furfur.

When we leave Furfur in 1941, he's just been embarrassed in front of The Dark Council by Aziraphale, who has swapped out the picture of him and Crowley for a flyer for the Ladies of Camelot, right? They literally laugh in Furfur's face. Furfur's entire plot in 1941 is about how he's been stuck in processing for millennia and he's trying to get out of it-- about how he's jealous of Crowley and the few others who get to go to Earth. He's dealt slight after slight after slight during this night in 1941. He fails to get proof against Crowley, who doesn't even remember him. He gets shamed and embarrassed in front of the higher-ups and his peers. His fledging... whatever it is exactly lol... with Shax-- who is the closest thing he has to a friend-- is damaged as she's gone out on a limb for him and he hasn't delivered. Most terrible, he's sure he's never going to get out of his miserable eternity of grunt work. He's *very, very, very* unhappy and boxed into a corner, right? So what does Furfur want, now that he's stuck in Hell forever and all of it is laughing at him?

Revenge. He wants revenge.

In the short term, he also wants someone to scream at, so he goes back up to Earth and finds the Zombie Nazis, who are roaming around London eating people. They can't go very quickly so they haven't gotten far and aren't hard to find lol. Furfur knows it's not exactly their fault that he was tricked by the angel as, technically, they completed the tasks they were given, but he's furious and he needs to vent it, so he starts yelling that he's going to revoke their zombie-life-on-earth clauses. (Even *the Nazi zombies* get to be on Earth and Furfur does not? Yeah, he's not going to be able to handle that...)

The Zombie Nazis, understandably after seeing that video he showed them in Part 2, start freaking out because they don't want that whole fly fate for all of eternity and they don't know how to reach anyone beyond Furfur so they'll do anything to keep Furfur from taking out his humiliation on them. Upon hearing that this is all about how Aziraphale tricked Furfur and got him humiliated by Hell, the Zombie Nazis start desperately suggesting that it's not too late! They can help Furfur still get Crowley and Aziraphale! Even if Hell thinks Furfur is a joke and won't listen to him about the angel and demon being involved, they can still help Furfur get revenge!

They bring Furfur to outside the bookshop to find Crowley and Aziraphale because that's where the Zombie Nazis say they saw them together earlier & they know Aziraphale lives there. Furfur's in a rage because through a side window, he's observing Crowley and Aziraphale drinking wine together by candlelight in what is the "I know you'd come through for me" scene from Part 2-- and Aziraphale even has the photo Furfur took of them earlier in his hand. (Insert here more of the recurring gag about Harmony lip-reading as now he's also looking through the window and probably gets a line like "he is saying it again! 'banana fish go-RILL-ah...'").

So Furfur is in a fur-furious rage here and is ready to murder these two but... there's just one *slight* problem...

He's a demon.

He can't get into the bookshop.

Aziraphale would have to invite him in and he's certainly not going to after their meeting earlier. But! This is when Furfur and the Nazis realize that there is someone in their group who *can* get in the bookshop...

....our fave fascist, Fraulein Greta Klauschmidt.

As "Rose", Greta recruited Aziraphale-- entering his bookshop when she was a human, invited in by Aziraphale. She can still get into the bookshop. (It's also a parallel to Shax tricking Aziraphale into letting her into The Bentley in S2.)

Once Furfur and the Nazis realize this, the question then becomes: okay, so if Greta can get into the shop, how is she then going to kill Aziraphale and Crowley? (*Especially* Aziraphale, whom Furfur really, really, really loathes at this point lol.)

This is when we go back to the scene that triggered this meta, which is that this is when Glozier then volunteers the information he overheard in the magic shop-- that there's a Chekhov's gun in the bookshop.

The Derringer works as a weapon here to do that because, as Furfur himself pointed out during the magic show earlier, if Crowley had shot Aziraphale in the face, it wouldn't just be paperwork but it might not be possible for them to "put him back together again"-- indicating that there are some things that can happen to angels and demons that are irreversible and can effectively kill them, more or less-- and a gunshot to the head is one of them.

(I'm also realizing as I'm writing this that that Glozier's *ear* falling off in the magic shop is another nod to him having *heard* important information and so far, we've only seen half of what he heard pay off-- the time and location of Aziraphale's performance in the West End. We're still awaiting pay off of the gun bit.)

My bet is that Aziraphale's Derringer in a hollowed out book is something he actually *showed "Rose" like the cinnamon roll idiot that he is* lol... so once Glozier brings it up, Greta remembers and she knows what book it's in and exactly where it is in the shop.

So Furfur still cannot get in but Greta can get in... which means Greta is now the most powerful character here. If Furfur wants Aziraphale dead, Greta can make that happen... *if* they cut a deal. What kind of deal? Well, the only thing Greta is going to want that she thinks that Furfur could give her is to not be a zombie, right? To be alive again? Reverse the clause in the paperwork and give her her life back. Whether or not Furfur can actually do this (and I'm not sure if he can or not, really, but I'd wager probably not), Furfur tells Greta that he can and she and the other Nazis believe him.

The plan is that the four of them go to the bookshop, where Furfur activates a miracle blocker card for a few hours surrounding the shop in an effort to limit Crowley and Aziraphale's powers and give the Zombie Nazis the advantage. Once the miracle blocker is in place, Greta goes inside while Harmony and Glozier make noise outside, in an effort to separate Crowley and Aziraphale to make it easier to kill them by attempting to lure one of them outside. Greta is to kill the one that stays inside the bookshop while Harmony and Glozier are supposed to kill the one that goes outside. (This will not happen according to plan at all, whatsoever, but it does seem like the most likely plan these four characters could form where they all have a role in it.)

So because Greta is the only one who can get inside, she has go to into the bookshop and be the one who can kill, most likely in their mind, Aziraphale. She'll still be a staggering zombie when the extremely bright Furfur sends her in there to obtain and fire a gun at a pair of supernatural beings lol but she manages to sneak in the back door without Crowley and Aziraphale really hearing the breaking & entering... or whatever noises the other two are making outside... as Crowley and Aziraphale are a little busy gazing at one another.

It would actually be a really funny, very Good Omens-y gag IMHO, if Greta is colossally unsubtle in entering the other side of the shop from where Crowley & Aziraphale are and is banging into stuff while Harmony and Glozier keep coming up with more and more insane noises outside... but Crowley and Aziraphale are too busy making heart eyes at one another to care or do anything about it. A very "did you... hear that?"/"oh, must be the war, let's go back to gazing" type of attitude with a steadily increasing series of sounds that are harder and harder to dismiss but they are trying, ok? lol. (This would also parallel Aziraphale ignoring the demons outside for as long as he could during The Ball in S2, until the bookshop begins literally breaking around them.)

So while we watch scenes of Furfur and The Zombie Nazis Hatch A Plot, the relationship tension between Crowley & Aziraphale is building as much as the plot tension. They intercut Furfur & the Nazis scenes with Crowley & Aziraphale having quiet, romantic, candlelit glasses of wine after their very intense and illuminating evening together. Each time we go back to Crowley & Aziraphale... they seem to be getting increasingly cozier. They sit a little closer, they get a little looser around one another. Crowley's glasses might come off. We get the sense that this is all Going Somewhere and it's somewhere they've never let themselves go before but after the events of Blitz 1 & 2 tonight? It's becoming increasingly clear to them that they will. There's virtual certainty that if *nothing else happens* to these two tonight and they're just left alone for once, they're at least going to kiss and what we're watching is them slowly enjoying the path there and them enjoying silently knowing that they're going to.

At some point, we hop from the Nazis back over to Aziraphale asking Crowley if he'd like a little music... Aziraphale might even have something *modern* kicking around, he's excited to tell Crowley (like he might have been totally not at all fantasizing about this exact Crowley-dashing-in-his-suit-with-a-glass-of-wine-smoldering-in-the-bookshop scenario when he bought this record from Maggie's grandfather recently lol)... and he goes over to the gramophone to put it on and now we've got Crowley and Aziraphale with candlelight and wine and music and they're each just taking step after slow little step that slowly acknowledges the romance at play here. Aziraphale's record is probably Glenn Miller. We know he likes big band and The Bentley played him "Moonlight Serenade" in S2 and Glenn Miller also recorded "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square", so it's one record where "Moonlight" could play and then, eventually, so too could "Nightingale" without Aziraphale getting up and moving away from Crowley... and you better believe that when we get to "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" playing that Crowley and Aziraphale are a literal breath away from kissing.

It'd be completely perfect to them, right? Very romantic. They're there together, alone, they've survived the Nazis and Mrs. H and threats of Hell and have spent the night gazing at one another and now they're here and it's quiet and there's candlelight and it's the familiar, comforting bookshop that is home for both of them... the same place, ironically, that they will drink wine together and make eyes at one another *for decades* after this night-- without Aziraphale putting on The Song, of course-- and you know they will think about 1941 every. single. time. while never actually recreating it.

(It's also why, when they're both wasted in the bookshop in S1's "Eleven Years Ago", Crowley is rambling on about bananas and gorillas and bouillabaisse/fish stew-- ya know, "banana fish gorilla..."-- and they're both so drunk and thinking about how they're almost out of time... and so they're both thinking of 1941 and wind up making those hilarious kissy faces at one another because they both obviously still want to actually kiss some 80 years after the night they almost did. Crowley also calls Aziraphale "baby" in the middle of his ramble. He might have called Aziraphale that in 1941, when they weren't drunk and were on their way to kissing. He also might have just wanted to, so it turned up in "Eleven Years Later" and might come up again later on in the present of S3, whenever they inevitably get to finally have a decent, uninterrupted, not painful kiss.)

Back in 1941, as we flip between Furfur/The Nazis and our heroes, maybe Crowley's even gotten comfortable enough to lose the glasses (though he can leave them on if he still has the hat on when they go to kiss so that he can take the hat off like a gentleman to kiss Aziraphale *swoon* and actually that's how Aziraphale died everyone surprise twist he's been dead since 1941 an a ghost this whole time lol)... and there's romantic big band on the record player and there was magic in the air and angels were dining at the Ritz when a nightingale sang in Bahhhrrrrk. Leeeeee. Square... and they're *almost* there, right? They're basically kissing. There is no way for either of them to ever legitimately pretend that was not was going to happen (even if they will try in the future lol) as their lips were a millimeter away and both of them want it and just like this and it's been six thousand years of pining and so, of course, that is when...

...Greta zombie-crashes into the room with Aziraphale's once-hidden Derringer aimed at them.

(Aziraphale's probably furiously muttering "oh good Lord" under his breath with a very different tone than in 1793 lol. That is his attitude, at least, if not the dialogue.)

So then they have to try to protect one another right and it's mild chaos for a moment as like Crowley starts looking out the window at Furfur and the rest of the Zombie Nazi Trio (paralleling his demons-outside-the-bookshop paranoia in S2) and realizes they were the noise while Greta is all "pity you both must die" again with a little smirk and Aziraphale is trying to calm her down and reason with her while also subtly trying to get close enough to get the gun and she probably fires but she's a zombie so she misses lol and he's like glancing over for Crowley and Crowley seems to disappear for a moment while Aziraphale stalls Greta and just when we think where the hell did Crowley go?! Aziraphale is about to be shot in the face!...

...Greta is shot in the face instead.

By Crowley.

With The Bullet Catcher.

And the bullet that was in Aziraphale's teeth a couple of hours ago.

Crowley has not so much has blown the fluff off a dandelion since he arrived on Earth six thousand years ago but you interrupt his first kiss with the angel and you. are. dead, you Nazi bitch...

I don't have a theory as to what happens after this beyond that we already know that Furfur is in Requisitions in the present now so he's going places lol. Also worth mentioning that Crowley or Aziraphale (I'd lean towards Crowley) could get shot by Greta's wild aim when they are trying to protect one another but it would be more of a graze that one could write a hundred h/c fics over than anything worth actually worrying about lol. It could be something like Crowley gets nicked but goes down as dramatically as he does in the paintball scene in S1 and Aziraphale is horrified but also fighting for his own life so he winds up focused on Greta and neither of them see Crowley slip away to come back with The Bullet Catcher... something like that. I'm just pretty sure that the fact that there are really *two* Chekhov's guns in the bookshop and that Greta is the only 1941 antagonist who can get inside it maths out to Crowley-- shooting her with The Bullet Catcher.

I'm not sure what happens to Harmony and Glozier. Aziraphale says in S1 that he's never killed anything so he can't kill anyone here and while I'm fine with Crowley mowing down Nazis with every Chekhov's gun left in the plot lol, I don't know that that's what happened or if, honestly, the two of them and Furfur just see Greta die through the window and run off. Maybe Aziraphale miracles the Nazis to Siberia. Who knows. But the main gist of it, I think, is that Crowley kills Greta when the Zombie Nazis and Furfur try to exact revenge on Crowley & Aziraphale and, in doing so, interrupt what would have been their first kiss and it's while "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" is on in the background so that every time the song comes up in the future, it's a reference to this near-kiss in 1941, adding layers to scenes from Soho 1967 to the end of S1 to the end of S2, etc...

Kind of makes Crowley desperately kissing Aziraphale in the middle of the bookshop while a vengeful Heaven, this time, is trying to separate them, even more aldkjlkfjlewje, yeah?

I'd also like to just throw in here that it's actually possible that all of this is the same but they *did* kiss... that they were kissing when Greta burst in. Part of me really wants that to be the case. That maybe they did get to have this kiss, if only because even if only a tenth of what I've said above is anywhere close to right, it's still pretty romantic and it would be nice if they got to have that, especially then, even if it was ultimately interrupted. It's Soho 1967, though, that convinced me that they came *very* close but ultimately didn't (and honestly, the only way they don't in 1941 if they get that close is if they're interrupted and an armed Zombie Nazi crashing through the bookshop feels about right lol.) It's this bit from Aziraphale to me that says they almost kissed but didn't:

The picnic was likely Crowley's 1827 date in Edinburgh. The Gabriel statue was there for amusement but you know Crowley had a picnic set up nearby. (It's not that weird-- people used to picnic in graveyards in the 1800s & the only time Crowley & Aziraphale would be able to together would be under the cover of darkness.) Then, they ran into Elspeth and the night took a turn. (Elspeth was also digging up bodies from graves, which is a parallel to zombies, hooking 1827 to 1941.) Dining at the Ritz-- literally going to The Ritz and eating together, which they do twice in S1-- is something Aziraphale would literally like to go do as a date as but it's also code in the 1967 scene for "perhaps, one day, we could finish 1941." He's telling Crowley in 1967 that he would still very much like to kiss him one day.

The near-kiss in 1941 would then also be what gives Aziraphale the motivation to eventually give Crowley the holy water in 1967. Back in 1863, Aziraphale didn't totally see that Crowley wanted holy water to protect them. By 1941, when they're staring at the corpse of a once-Zombie Nazi on the floor of the bookshop that Crowley just killed with the gun that's in his hands, it's a different sort of proof. 1941 becomes the era of 'here is proof that Crowley will literally kill to protect Aziraphale' and maybe it freaks Aziraphale out a little (as well as also turning him on a lot lol). Maybe that's why they spend the next years after that until the '60s together but not really together. Maybe that's why they don't have another chance at the kiss after 1941-- why they don't just try again-- because Aziraphale slows down a bit after it, afraid that Crowley could get hurt and that this is too dangerous, but he also understands now that Crowley is in love with him and when he hears in 1967 that Crowley is going after Holy Water, Aziraphale just gives him some, as a way of saying that he knows they're in love but this is impossible and they need to not pursue this in a way that will get them killed because he can't lose him.

A near-kiss in 1941 adds layers to 1967 Soho by adding an additional meaning of 'physical intimacy' to "dining at the Ritz". It adds even more weight to the end of S2 and the kiss and the "no nightingales" through to the Tori Amos angsty cover of "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" in The Bentley. There are other scenes (the end of S1 and others) that it touches as well, if indirectly, but maybe my favorite is this scene, which has already been given extra layers of meaning since The Blitz, Part 2 and The Bullet Catcher plot but lol now add in the idea that the rest of the story is that Crowley and Aziraphale were going to kiss and they were interrupted in the moment, shot at with at least one of them probably getting nicked, and then Crowley killed someone with The Bullet Catcher and tell me it doesn't make this already amazing sequence even more amazing:

#ineffable husbands #good omens #crowley #aziraphale #good omens theory #good omens 1941 #good omens meta #aziraphale x crowley #crowley x aziraphale

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melonsharks · 1 year

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Tell us everything about the parent trap au immediately please please please

to give u an insanely quick rundown with a wip art i have:

aziraphale as elizabeth. wedding dress designer under his pen name A.Z. Fell. (hes an artist as confirmed in s2 and the whole "drawing on napkins" thing elizabeth would do appeals to me immensely)

crowley as nick. owns a vineyard. I NEED HIM TO OWN A VINEYARD SO BAD. shoutout to Old Vines on ao3 for changing me in a fundamental way. he makes wines and he tends to the vines and he is so passionate about it to an abusurdist degree. he yells at his vines when they arent growing right. you already knowwww.

when they meet for the first time, they don’t meet on a boat like in the movie, they actually meet at a wedding party :J crowley was a wine collector, just starting out. he loved offering aziraphale samplings of his most vintage collection out of impulse. (he likes seeing the way aziraphale savors them) (he’s besotted) Wants to own his own vineyard one day. aziraphale, on the other hand, has dreams of becoming a fashion designer of sorts, always drawing ideas on any scraps of paper he can find. his designs are very old fashioned, but thats like… part of the appeal. his work very much reflects who he is, and the people who flock to it understand that.

they enter this kind of… whirlwind relationship, they get married, and then eventually adopt two golden haired blue eyed baby boys. twins. :J warlock and adam.

they break things off because aziraphale leaves... alluding to their recent breakup in season two, the reason he left was because "we both clearly had very different ideas on where our lives were going. so. i packed up and left." (parallel s2 divorce 😋 they don’t know how to talk to each other) (aziraphale throws a book at his head after this argument, like the hairdryer in the movie LOL. it was pride and prejudice. crowley still has it.)

aziraphale leaves with adam. warlock is left with crowley. crowley eventually leaves London because he finds he cant stand being anywhere near Aziraphale (hes just irresistible in that way), and he goes to California where he finally fulfills his dream of owning a vineyard. a nice one on Napa, Northern California.

Aziraphale’s wedding dresses become more and more well known, Adam grows well-adjusted. Same kid you know from the show and book, natural born leader, a good head on his shoulders. (Aziraphale has no idea why Adam is like that, but he is so proud)

Crowley’s vineyard (The Garden Of Eden) grows and grows… Warlock is spoiled rotten, but he does love actually working at the vineyard with Crowley to and he and Crowley have a really good relationship…

Eventually the kids go to a summer camp together in London (i dont know if they . do this in the UK, but suspend your disbelief if you will) Adam meets The Them there, then meets Warlock after a nutty fencing thing, they kind of hate each other at first and the rest is history :J

side characters UM. LOL. idk……. i mean i kind of know but not really? theres just so many possibilities that make the rounds in my head. chessy could be anathema OR nina (ive had people suggest eric too?) and martin could be newt OR maggie (ive also had people suggest muriel????) gestures vaguely.

as for meredith…….erm…………🤷‍♂️ ive had everything under the sun suggested to me and i still……have no idea. LOL. gabriel, lucifer, shaX, FURFUR, THE WIFE FROM THE NON-SPOILER SPOILERS. I DONT KNOW. IT ALL FEELS WRONG. its hard to come up with this role in particular when these gay bitches literally only have eyes for each other. always. forever. u know. i think lucy is like. the classic answer. but idfk.

ask me about . more things if u want. this is consuming my every thought.

anyways the cover im working on for. for something:

#good omens #good omens 2 #gomens #aziracrow #aziraphale #crowley #adam young #warlock dowling #parent trap au #asks #paradox-progressing #i said insanwly quick but this is so fucking long. im sorry

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queenofthearchipelago · 8 months

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I feel like the reason some people in the fandom chose to look at the final fifteen in this sort of "I'm team Aziraphale / anti-Crowley" or "I'm team Crowley / anti-Aziraphale" kind of way is because they forget that Crowley and Aziraphale are literally two sides of the same coin.

And everyone either relates more to one side or the other. For me, I relate to Crowley more. I understand him easier. When the final fifteen came, nothing he said confused me or caught me off guard. I gasped and screamed, sure. But I didn't need to analyze his words the way I needed to analyze Aziraphale's.

Does that mean I'm saying I don't relate to Aziraphale at all? No. Honestly, the more I think about Aziraphale, the more I see myself in him too. It's just that the bits of Aziraphale I relate to are either bits of myself that are harder to see, or bits of myself I don't like.

And so when I watch the final fifteen as a separate person, not part of the coin, I relate to one side more than the other (I relate to both sides equally but it's hard to accept that sometimes.) But I also have to be honest with myself.

If I weren't just the audience, would I be Aziraphale or Crowley?

Would I be Crowley, not letting myself back into a toxic relationship that hurt me? Would I want to run and yell at the sky so that they couldn't find me anymore? Would I want to just allow myself the life where I could have one good thing I've found in the entire universe?

Or would I be Aziraphale? Would I allow myself to be convinced (or manipulated) into going back to a place that hurt me? Or, depending on your theory, would I go back into the lion's den and try to change the system that oppresses me? Would I want to make the world a better place for the person I loved most, even if it was dangerous? Even if they began to hate me for it? (Not that I think Crowley hates him, but what does Aziraphale think that Crowley thinks of him?)

I know myself enough to know that I'm Crowley. I wanna run. I'm scared and I love you and we can be safe if we just keep going forward. Why are you asking me to go back there? To them? You know what they did! You're enough for me, everything to me, why are you chosing them over just allowing yourself to have me?

There's a bit of me that's Aziraphale. A bit of me that would go back, if I truly thought I could fix it. If I was the better manipulator.

But I think not everyone can do that, they see themselves in one OR the other. They take sides because they can't see both sides. And honestly maybe that's part of the point of Heaven and Hell in the show in the first place. They don't see the value of the other side. The merits, the thoughtfulness. The shades of grey of it all.

Maybe most people who are anti Aziraphale can't relate to that desperate tone Michael Sheen chose to use when he said that Heaven is the side of good. Can't relate to desperately needing to hope that this place you come from is still somehow good at the core. Because how could you come from corruption?

And maybe most people who are completely obliterating Crowley's character in the tags don't relate to the bursting need to just be free of the things that hold you back from every good thing you've ever wanted for yourself.

I see myself in both. I've been there. I'd be Crowley out of the two of them. But I see Aziraphale now. The more I think of him the more I understand him.

As much as I ask questions (so many questions) that get me in trouble, I also refuse to ask them out loud for the same reason.

I have people in my life who think I have this incredible capacity to think everything through. Every possible avenue of consideration. And I also have people in my life who get frustrated with me for not thinking hard enough or fast enough.

I have made some difficult decisions on what was good and what was right and made my choice that I would do what I thought was right over what I was raised to think was good. And I also made some of those decisions in complete agonizing secret.

The true ending for good omens 2 is realizing for yourself, however you get there, that you (yes, YOU) are both of them.

As David and Michael said in the interviews, Aziraphale and Crowley are fascinated and completely infuriated by the other. Because they're so different. Because they're so similar. And if you don't feel the same way yet, relating to one, and being amazed at how you relate to the other. Being fascinated and infuriated by it, then you just haven't reached the end yet.

When I rewatch the very ending of the season these days, I don't see a demon, completely in love with an angel who is leaving him. I see myself watching myself do something I would never do. Except I would do it. I wouldn't, I'd never. And yet I would. And I watch myself get in the car and drive away from the version of me that did.

#long analysis and I never talk about fandom drama here but I wanted to point this out for you all who are really frustrated #yes people are assasinating crowley and aziraphale characters and its because they dont realize this yet and thats okay #good omens meta #good omens #good omens fandom #the final fifteen #thoughtsfromthequeen

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relatableblorbopoll · 10 months

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Round 1 of preliminaries, group 6

The first two places get a place on the bracket

Little reminder: there will be 2 more rounds of preliminaries, the losing blorbos of this poll still have 2 chances of getting in the official bracket

propaganda under the cut

Jesper Fahey (Six of Crows)

No Propaganda

Crowley (Good Omens)

"He's gender. He's been in love with one guy for literally 6000 years and then royally fucks up his entire confession. He yells at his plants. He drapes himself over every fucking surface he sits on. He walks like *that*. He just fuckin makes sounds sometimes. He's me fr."

Dave Strider (Homestuck)

"everything that can be said about Dave's relatability will probably sound redundant, clichéd, or overdone if you are at all familiar with tumblrs sort of blorbo culture. this is exactly why he should be in this tournament.

stop me if you think that you've heard this one before: he hides his genuine emotions behind a persona, deflects sincerity with jokes, but also has a deep desire for validation and connection, so that his persona has many cracks where little bits of his true self slip through. deeply insecure, compares himself to others. a defeatist streak, avoids responsibility. does not wish to be troubled by The Horrors. he just wants to hang out and do his lil creative hobbies (making music and drawing comics). talks a lot to the point of being pretty awkward, rambling, and accidentally saying stuff he shouldnt.

all these things I think tend to resonate deeply with a lot of people, especially on Tumblr - that "person who is insecure and struggles with emotional openness so copes by making jokes" sort of trope, it's just like kin bait (affectionate). he also has a complicated relationship with gender which I know many find relatable (shout out to the "Dave homestuck was my trans awakening" homies) but whether it's about figuring out gender or sexuality or trauma or the apocalypse or anything else, Dave comes at it with an initial, learned, fear and reluctance that I think a lot of people have experienced, because it's very human and very much a part of many readers experiences (we live in a society). but he's always good, and likeable and that makes for a very important sort of relatable character. very comforting. even if he's a mess and he's an idiot you can believe he can get to something better, and you can watch him develop and grow.

also, I think he's extremely relatable because he never really knows what's going on in the comic either. I mean, that's gonna be relatable to most people Vis a vis homestuck. he's confused and he just wants to vibe and make his friends laugh. WHO AMONG US cannot relate?? I do not believe you if you say no.

I wrote too much and got way too weird about it. I'm sorry it's late I'd edit down but I really don't have the brain capacity.. which is very Dave core of me actually"

Junior (Total Drama Presents: The Ridonculous Race)

"i relate to him a lot because his whole character is being embarrassed of his dad who tries too hard to be cool, but still loves him anyways. that is literally me"

Kim Dokja (Omnicient Reader's Viewpoint)

"kim dokja. oh kim dokja. so, without going into spoilers too much, kim dokja is very much a character you are expected to relate to and it makes the novel DEVASTATING. here's just a few things about him: - he is obsessed with a particular piece of media, and finds comfort in it when real life doesn't give him any. he's constantly thinking about it and defending it and trying to recommend it to other people (even though no one else bothers reading it, because it is an objectively bad 3000-chapter webnovel). even beyond that one novel, he's been using fiction as an escape for just about his entire life, something that rings true for a lot of people, especially in the modern world. - he struggles with socializing with other people. the first chapter alone gave me so much second hand embarrassment. it's so real but god it's So bad. he has zero friends and has that sort of loneliness where you're miserable but you can't really bring yourself to feel anything but resigned to it. in general he is just very Resigned to his unfortunate life and can't fully understand or accept it when it finally does get better - he has a complicated relationship with his mother. it's the kind of relationship where the parent genuinely does love their child, but they fail to give them what they need & have to accept that they hurt their kid and that they cannot be the most important person in their life. it's certainly not a universal experience but those sorts of parent-child relationships are woefully common but scarcely acknowledged -the insecurity. god there is so much insecurity in that man. it's hard to even completely tell it's there at first, because it's so ingrained in how he thinks that you don't question it until you know more about his character and suddenly it's all too apparent. he cannot believe that he can be loved (or, if that he can be, that they certainly would not be able to love all of him, only what he chooses to show them), and is selfless but like. the literal meaning of the word, where he will throw away all of his being for the people he loves. in general there is a lot of sacrifice as a love language which like. while i'm not off around throwing myself in front of magic death beams for people or anything i sure would give up everything i could if it meant helping the people i love - ok enough of that. here's some funny things i can relate to. the guy meets his favorite fictional blorbo and instead of worshipping him instead he bullies him constantly and internally complains about how unbearable he is both in the book and in real life. it's like a "i love my blorbo. i would not last 2 seconds in a room with him." You know. he gets so caught up in his fanon characterizations and biases about characters that he completely mischaracterizes them like constantly. he literally kills a guy half because he was his least favorite character. -this is a poll about blorbo relatability. therefore i must mention that kim dokja too related to his blorbo (or at least attempted to) and what is more relatable than that. anyways. kdj made me realize far too much about myself and is by far the most i have ever related to a character (and i Hate it). and tumblr would definitely relate to him too so :thumbs-up:"

"(SPOILERS) He is literally all of us. Reader. Just some guy. And then insane tragic backstory. But he’s also just some guy. He’s special and also just a guy. He’s also god. He can be shipped w anyone. He has versatility and interests and motivations. He also never tells anyone anything ever. He is so me."

"He reads a trashy, long-ass novel as a coping mechanism and doesn't think he's capable of being loved. Bro dissociates when he's emoting too much."

"I'm a homestuck fan, a Dave Strider fan even Never heard of Omnicient Reader's before Voted for the kim fellow because judging by the propaganda it looks like he himself would be a homestuck reader therefore making him more relatable than the homsetuck character himself"

"This guy’s been my companion since I was 11, I’ve grown up with Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint and I think that’s pretty funny since he grew up with Ways of Survival (the 3149 chapter novel) and therefore I’m straight up mirroring him. I, too, scare everyone off by being too enthusiastic whenever the webnovel is brought up! His insecurities are severe but I do see myself in some parts of him (which is worrying but whatever.) He is absolutely The Guy Ever. Utterly pathetic wet cat of a man. I love him. He represents the crazy fandom tumblrina in all of us."

Donutella (Tokidoki)

"she's made of donuts basically like me at this point"

#tumblr tournament #tumblr polls #character bracket #character tournament #preliminaries #jesper fahey #six of crows #crowley #good omens #dave strider #homestuck #junior total drama #total drama #the ridonculous race #kim dokja #omniscient reader's viewpoint #donutella #tokidoki

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queerfables · 1 year

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I have this thought that's simmering in the back of my head, and there's some evidence for it, but I simply can't take myself seriously on it, because the idea hits my favourite tropes way too perfectly. I'm, like, 90% sure I should admit to myself that what I actually want is to write fic about this and skip the meta entirely. But apparently this is how I process things these days, so you get my wild projections masquerading as analysis first, and maybe if you're lucky some kind of story later.

So, Nina's partner, Lindsay. Not so much a person as an analogy, right? The consensus is that this relationship is a stand in for Aziraphale's relationship with Heaven, making Heaven the toxic partner holding Aziraphale back from finding real happiness. But the more I think about it, the more I feel like we've taken that assumption and worked backwards from it to prove that Nina is really Aziraphale's mirror and Maggie is really Crowley's.

Look, I realise that drawing the line from Nina to Crowley and Maggie to Aziraphale feels obnoxiously obvious. There are superficial similarities, but does it go any deeper than their general demeanour? When we look at how Nina describes Crowley and Aziraphale - the hard-bitten one who doesn't trust, the soft one who still believes in goodness - I think there's honestly a solid argument to be made that both descriptions could apply to either one of them. I don't think that's conclusive. The thing that's really giving me pause is that Crowley's car and Nina's shop both play Queen. It seems like such a clear signal that they're foils. There's also the fact that the partition around her shop has a very snake-like pattern embedded in it, quite similar in shape to Crowley's tattoo (a detail that pairs nicely with the apple-tree motif on the French restaurant next door).

If Nina is Crowley's mirror, does that mean that Crowley is the one trapped in a toxic relationship? And here's the part where I absolutely cannot trust my brain to give me sensible feedback, because the little gremlin who lives there immediately shuts off all higher functions at the first hint a character might be unwillingly beholden to a nefarious outside force. Especially if they are keeping it a secret.

Could Crowley have been blackmailed or coerced into working for Hell again, despite nominally being estranged from it? I literally could not tell you, because my brain is too busy yelling yes yes yes please oh my god yes. I just love the idea way too much to be rational about it.

I won't insult anyone by labeling this next section "supporting evidence", but here are some ways I think it could fit into canon as it's been established:

In light of my recent meta on how to think about Good Omen's twists, I've been ruminating on some of the big questions I have about season 2. And one of the ones that keeps jostling for my attention is, why are Crowley and Aziraphale not together yet? I don't mean that flippantly, what I mean is - I believe that Crowley and Aziraphale are both aware of the way they feel about each other, and have been for some time. If that's true, what's keeping them apart? Obviously there are quite a few potential answers to this, including the possibility that I'm wrong and they're not both consciously aware of their feelings for each other. But it's an idea I find compelling. They're not together because they're not free yet. And not just in a hypothetical looming threat kind of way.

When Beelzebub summons Crowley in 2x01, Crowley says "I thought we had a generalised understanding." Beelzebub replies, "We don't. You're still a traitor," and then goes on to threaten him with a bounty. The obvious implication is that the understanding they don't have is from the end of season one, that Hell will leave Crowley and Aziraphale alone. But what if it's a different kind of understanding? What if the subtext of Beelzebub's offer for whatever he wants is that he can have enough power to be free of whatever nasty little job he's supposed to be doing on the sly? (Not enough to break free of Hell entirely, though. Never enough for that.)

On the other hand, Crowley doesn't recognise Beelzebub's new face, but they must have been wearing it for a while given all their meetings with Gabriel. Is Crowley bound to the one demon higher than Beelzebub, then? Sorry, the gleeful brain gremlin is the only one available to take questions on this. It sure would be sexy, though, if both the power difference and the secrecy involved were as extreme as possible.

This is a weird little detail that probably doesn't mean anything, but when Aziraphale gets back from Edinburgh, it's early in the morning the day of the ball. The streets are mostly empty and Nina is just arriving for work. Aziraphale helps Crowley put the plants back in the Bentley, and at some point after this, Crowley takes the car and leaves. He must do, because we see him come back. Where did he go? He can't have been gone more than a couple of hours at most, because he arrives back in time to follow Aziraphale around convincing everyone to attend his ball. Okay, fine, maybe Crowley just needed to get away, relax somewhere there's no amnesiac archangel breathing down his neck. But the timeline is so short it seems like a strange detail. It makes me think that Crowley might actually have been hiding something, here. I don't know that this theory is the most likely explanation, but it sure could be an explanation.

And finally, for maximum angst potential, imagine Aziraphale finding out that after everything Crowley said about how toxic Heaven and Hell are, after all the grief he gave Aziraphale for returning to Heaven, that Crowley had been secretly working for Hell all along? WOOF.

#good omens #i am so sorry that there are some genuinely interesting meta details hidden in this self indulgent trash fire #by rights they should belong to something more sensible #but this is the meta we have #fable talks good omens #it's waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too late and i'm posting this without reading it over again if i've left any sentences hanging no i didn't

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emeraldstorms · 1 year

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Good Omens Fandom rant

Disclaimer: I’m angry. I’m mad. So this rant is maybe a tad unfair. It’s about gender and gender representation etc. so if these are things that make you easily mad or angry as well, better not read it. I wanted to be positive after S2 and failed. If you want to be happy after S2, scroll on. I might delete later, idk. So yeah, it’s fandom wank and maybe it is not that deep. But I have to go somewhere with it.

I ask people who yell at or outright bully fans, interpreting Aziraphale and Crowley as gay men, to take a tiny step back and for one fucking second think how old this fandom is!

You can’t just tell people who have been in that fandom for 30 years that they have to change all their HCs.

Yes, the book “Good Omens” has the line “angels are sexless” to make clear that Aziraphale is not gay. But in the 1980/90s that line meant “oh no, publisher, editor, reviewer, we’re not having a gay main character who is kind, empathetic, relatable, good and does not die in the end in our book! That would be crazy!”

Everyone knew that. With Crowley people may have had varied interpretations. But Aziraphale was so important to many gay men. I remember my friend from university, the gay guy who forced me to reread Good Omens in the English original (because the German translation is… not great) having literal tears of happiness in his eyes when speaking of Aziraphale. Because for the first time he felt that he was represented in a loving and respectful way.

Telling men like him that he isn’t allowed to headcanon him as a gay man anymore? I’m sorry, that’s not only pretty much against the “all headcanons are valid” rule. That’s just cruel. Aziraphale as gay men rep was literally what kept him upright in his homophobic family. Fuck you if you call him a bigot for clinging to it.

“They are angels, they have no concept of gender”

Oh, good! In that case it’s quite impossible to misgender them, right? True, “man” is a human label. So is “nonbinary”, “genderfluid” etc. If they have no concept of gender, they won’t mind being called literally anything, right?

For a crowd that claims gender doesn’t matter, the GO fandom reacts quite aggressive to the word “male”. Weird.

And yes, I know that a lot of people think they are canonically nonbinary. I don’t know and I don’t care. This is about Headcanons and not coming after people for said headcanons.

P.S.: sex and gender aren’t the same, so sexless and genderless aren’t either. Maybe rethink the take that a being can never be a man when they weren’t “created” as one?

#Good omens #fandom drama #fandom wank #fandom discourse #aziraphale #crowley #angel gender

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notquitecharlie · 1 year

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My family’s reaction to Good Omens Season 2

I just finished watching Good Omens Season 2…I’m still crying so I’m not gonna talk about my reaction to it (likely same as any sane fan…a lot of tears) but I’m…I really need to talk about my family’s reaction, because it genuinely hurts…a lot it hurts.

Basically I’ve watched the whole season with my Mom, my brother (13), my sister (9), my brother (8) and obviously me (16 and closeted lesbian) and I’ve always found Aziraphale and Crowleys relationship to be obvious…and kinda assumed that even if my family wouldn’t say it that they did too, turns out they didn’t and are pissed.

When it got to the part of Maggie and Nina talking to Crowley my siblings and mom were all shouting variations of “They better not make Crowley and Aziraphale gay, that’s disgusting and we’ll never watch Good Omens again” (yes…actually). So when it came to the kiss they were all yelling and outraged and saying stuff, I don’t want to repeat the worst of it because it hurts, it hurts to hear my family be so vocally outraged against who I am, it really does. I love good omens, I love that Aziraphale and Crowley finally had their moment the only thing I don’t love is the things that people (ie my family) seem to think is okay to say about gay people…what the actual fuck. The rest of this night has been everyone misinterpreting my tears, thinking I’m upset that Aziraphale and Crowley kissed (“I’m so sorry the ruined your favorite show”) and asking me why I’m not more angry. Here’s some direct quotes from my family.

“The Book was written in what they 80’s gay wasn’t even a thing back then, were they kissing in the book?”

“Neil Gaiman caved to Hollywood”

“They already had nasty lesbians on it, why do they need so many gay people?”

“Neil Gaiman literally just spit on and pooped on Terry Pratchetts grave.”

“This woke shit fucks everything up”

“Aren’t you embarrassed you were telling so many people to watch the show? You won’t make that mistake again will you [laughter]”

“What are you going to do with all your good omens stuff? (5 shirts, 2 funkos, a sweatshirt, a necklace, and like 3 copies of the book) Maybe some gay people would want to buy it from you.”

“They don’t deserve a third season”

“I’m never watching it again”

“Didn’t this ruin the book for you?”

There’s a lot more but I’m still crying, and I…yeah. I love good omens, I love openly loving good omens and I don’t blame the show I’m so happy to have it, it just hurts so bad to have your family say that stuff indirectly to you (you’d be shocked at the slurs 8 years old know), good omens brings me so much joy, even with the ending of the second season, I don’t know. I’m sorry I just I love Neil Gaiman, I love good omens, how can someone think of something so wonderful something that they loved mere minutes before as horrible and gross because two people spelled out the fact that they were in love?

Good Omens has been an escape for me for a long time, in the book no one is who the world decides them to be and that’s always how I’ve felt. I love the show and as much as the ending wounds me, I loved season 2. I just wish I’d watched it by myself, and that I hadn’t been so stupid.

#neil gaiman #good omens #good omens 2 spoilers #good omens 2 #go2 #go2 spoilers #good omens season 2 #Homophobia

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thesherrinfordfacility · 1 year

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Wow, I just fell down the rabbit hole of your master meta list a few days ago and am thoroughly enjoying every minute of the ride. Your analyses are discerning, clear, compassionate and fascinating. I have a thought to add to a question you posed and a question I would love to get your insight on.

First though I want to preface both notes by saying how much I appreciate your thoughtful and articulate analysis of Crowley’s character, as well as Aziraphale’s, but particularly the flaws in both, and particularly the flaws in Crowley’s, which covers areas of his character that are so often overlooked (antichrist kill foist off is offender #1). I love both of these characters, and the fandom, and I have also noticed a tendency in fanfic as well as some portion of the fandom to cast Crowley as the romantic hero, utterly devoted to A, completely besotted, wrapped around A’s finger, demon with a heart of pure gold - when from all we’ve been shown in canon he’s much more complex (they both are) and much more self serving, as well as much more manipulative - though who knows how consciously this manipulation is done, based on where he (and A) came from, which is what I get into more in this note.

(There’s also this distilling I see happening to One hero (C) and One damsel/object for him to rescue and pine over (A) rather than seeing them both as equal hero/ines and culprits both and I could definitely write a whole essay about why we as a culture are primed to look for, see and then die on the hill of these roles, but I am going to try and stay on point here.)

Point #1: in relation to a question posed in this post: https://www.tumblr.com/thesherrinfordfacility/725485403433484288/lwa-lol-no-that-wasnt-me-i-wasnt-surprised

In regards to - why does Crowley hide the full play by play of the execution from A?

My thought is that it could be due to his trauma.

In s1 he references falling due to “only” asking questions. He’s shown directly asking god a question once with visible fear and the fate of the entire planet at stake at motivator for why he would risk this again. He yells at A about god acting in mysterious ways and “not talking to anyone about it” which feels like an important comment for him to make - the not talking about things to anyone. There’s already enough here to conclude that he has trauma is based around information, questions, secrecy and transparency. On a conscious and/or subconscious level he’s learned truth/openness/questions/transparency = Not Safe. This is confirmed with what we see of AWCW in s2 when it’s confirmed that he was asking questions and wanting full transparency (and in s2 we see him completely floored by Job just being able to ask god questions). Thus we get the post-fall Crowley who puts on a very carefully constructed mask of an appearance, literally masking the arguably most expressive part of his face, and who has a habit of chronically not telling the whole story or sometimes any part of the story whatsoever. While I agree with your many insightful analyses about this coming from his desire to be the hero for Aziraphale (limiting/controlling A’s agency) and for his own hero narrative, I think that’s one part of it and that there are other times (like the question in this post) when he hides things for no clear reason, and I think it’s both from the initial trauma as well as his added trauma from being an agent of hell who had to really double down on “transparency is not safe” to survive in hell for millennia.

For example, in s1e1 on the bench at the zoo C casually mentions the hell hound as though A should already know about this, then seems sort of surprised that A doesn’t know this and then rolls right into dismissing its importance. This always felt like a trauma response to me, having personally witnessed a lot of examples of disassociation from trauma in my line of work, specifically trauma related to sharing information/asking questions. My take was that he doesn’t remember not telling A, but doesn’t want to admit that, so he acts like it doesn’t matter. And now that we officially have the implication from s2 that there’s a memory wipe to deal with on top of his (probable) disassociation, which makes me wonder how much Crowley honestly knows that he’s telling and how much he’s honestly intending to conceal. I agree that he hides that he’s living in the Bentley to preserve his image to Aziraphale and that that’s a deliberate choice, but I wonder overall if he’s even able to keep track of what he’s saying and not saying.

This is actually giving me a new thought as of now about the final 15 - when he’s confronted by Maggie and Nina and he says “oh yeah we talk all the time, been talking for /millions/ of years.” The millions could just be an exaggeration, just like I think him saying that “they’ve spent their existence pretending that they’re not” is a dramatic exaggeration, but maybe he has no idea how long they’ve actually known each other? And a vague sense of what they’ve even talked about? I’ve worked with people who have trauma and disassociation from families that kept secrets and refused to answer questions and sometimes they remember what really happened, sometimes they remember the family lie, and sometimes they’ve deleted the incident entirely-sometimes all this from one person during different conversations. Anyway, this could add another layer of context to why, instead of breakfast at the ritz, he’s suddenly determined to have the conversation he’s not entirely sure how much of that they’ve previously had or haven’t had and isn’t sure how to say it and is not catching on to everything A is trying to express (and as to what tf that is boy have I had questions, and your posts have offered a lot of insight that hadn’t occurred to me - a dm for another time.)

But to go back to the question of why not tell A everything that went down in the execution - you’d think he’d be happy to rely the entire incident to prove both A wrong in choosing heaven sort of in s1 (part of my question in the next message) and/or prove his point about heaven being as wrong as hell. Instead we are never shown him sharing the details and it seems implied that he hasn’t. Based on his trauma—maybe it’s because he’s so used to keeping secrets at this point, maybe it’s because it’s useful to have information only he knows that might benefit him at some point in the future, and/or maybe he’s having a trauma response to the entire incident and is completely disassociating, either from his own fall or because of his feelings for A or both. When he confronts Jim/briel about it he only does so after we see him pour out the last of a bottle of wine he drank alone and it’s definitely not a well thought out confrontation. It feels emotional and spur of the moment, and at least one bottle of wine is involved, which tracks with the state people sometimes need to be in to confront a traumatic memory. And going back to how he’s had to learn to keep secrets and possibly disassociates - does he even know he hasn’t given A the whole play by play? He tells him Gabriel wanted to throw him in hellfire - maybe he honestly thinks he’s told A the whole story and that’s part of his fury and rejection of A wanting to help Jim. He’s such an unreliable narrator, and there’s both the memory wipe and disassociation at play - we just don’t know.

Anyway, thank you for reading this far if you have! Part 2 to follow with my question and I promise it will be much shorter! 🙏

oh my goodness, hi @on-till-morning!!!✨

what a lovely couple of messages to wake up to, that's so kind of you to say and im so happy that you like my ramblings!!! thank you ever so much!!! I hope you don't mind, but I've condensed both of your really thought-provoking asks into one, just so hopefully my answer flows a bit better?

screenshot of second ask, and answer, under the cut!!!

lets get cracking!!!✨ i really like your analysis on crowley's learned behaviour that transparency is not a concept with which he feels comfortable, and this is represented in not only how he physically presents himself, but also in his actions and behaviours - that secrecy, and keeping to the dark, is safer and offers more protection. it's well argued and supported, and I do agree that there must be a factor of this at play in his characterisation.

i think the thing that i take issue with in parsing out crowley's trauma (because he evidently has it - and your ask summarises elements of this beautifully) is that many associate his trauma to the fall. but honestly? that reason has never sat entirely comfortably with me. my first draft of this response had about nine vaguely-argued reasons for this, but i've narrowed it down to two specific points:

* * * * *

his body language, delivery, and general behaviour both on the wall of eden, and in mesopotamia, do not match with what i would recognise as a trauma response to the fall - in fact, his characterisation is much closer to that of AWCW's rather than the crowley we later see. we could read this as dissociation, but i personally don't think it's this at all. his behaviour changes after the flood, and going into ACtO, which indicates to me that his bitterness and resentment doesn't stem from the fall itself, but from the fact that - in his eyes - god has not learnt anything from the fall. now, we as the audience can have our speculation on who caused the fall, was it meant to happen, what is god's true will, etc. but from crowley's perspective, he is witnessing continuous events where god and heaven are causing unnecessary suffering, disguised as tests and trials, right up until 2019 - "you said you were going to be testing them, but you shouldn't test them to destruction..." - where the apocalypse is just a line too far.

we then also have the mirrored conversation between ACTO and the bandstand scene in s1:

c: "what do you know about what i want" // c: "i won't be forgiven, not ever."

a: "i know you."

c: "you do not know me." // c: "that's part of a demon's job description. 'unforgivable', that's what i am."

a: "...i know the angel you were-" // a: "you were an angel once."

c: "the angel you knew is not me." // c: "that was a long time ago."

2. cont'd: crowley's last lines for me here are rather opposite in sentiment. in the first, he's bitter and dismissive, categorically distancing himself as the person he is in ACtO from the angel to whom aziraphale is referring; that they are two separate entities and never the twain shall meet. in the bandstand scene, he acknowledges his former angelic self, and by doing so appears to have somewhat reconciled that this former person is in fact part of him. that suggests to me, in part, some form of healing; that doesn't mean that he isn't still confused or angry about the fall and some trauma may be underlying, but it strikes me that this is a part of his history that doesn't have the same sting as it once did.

(still cont'd): it is however his assertion that he is unforgivable that is the most interesting to me in this scene, because to me his conclusion for this fact confers to me two possible eventualities that we have not seen in the narrative:

a) he may have at some point asked god for forgiveness, not gotten an answer, and has accepted that (which corresponds neatly to his aversion to "i forgive you", and "[god] not talking to any of us"), or

b) that this is a rhetoric that has been drummed into him from hell (which i'm less inclined to support as fully; the first option is supported narratively, and this option would suggest that crowley listens to hell in any capacity - but that being said, this could be contributory to his carriage and personality shift between mesopotamia and uz).

(to be honest, both of these could be true, and feed into each cyclically - hell tells him he's unforgivable, god doesn't disagree, on and on it goes.)

* * * * *

now, both of the above could be turned entirely on its head by taking into account the memory-wipe theory. i do think memory manipulation is going to play some part in s3, and explaining some parts of the issues with crowley and his recount of the fall, but i'm reluctant to fully chalk everything up to the fact that it was because crowley can't remember it - i think this potentially erases too much accountability on his part for his own actions. this is similar to how I feel about his actions being excused by trauma; whilst i certainly believe that some of his decisions and actions are, like you said, potentially borne out of trauma, and that makes elements of his actions understandable and empathetic, it does not give him license to shirk accountability for them, nor make them justifiable.

but in essence, as it currently stands, i agree that crowley has issues with transparency and openness; i'm just not convinced this is wholly to do with the fall, but instead that he takes issue with fact that god/heaven has not learnt from the fall. saying it again - this for me is apparent in the "you said you would be testing them, but you shouldn't test them to destruction..." line; he's, as you said, concerned for the fate of the world, especially if you consider that like the fall, like the flood, and like job, it's all set up as a test. in his mind - why hasn't god learnt from the last time they tried to test something to destruction? why would god encourage this on the innocent, those that are still learning - those that are just asking questions? i think crowley has largely accepted what happened to him, but cannot understand why it seems to him that only he is the one to see that it shouldn't be repeated.*

this is what i think 'his side' in job is largely borne from, and is the beginning of his propensity towards embodying a hero-narrative. to be completely reductive about it, i think sometimes crowley does see himself as the saviour of the story (certainly supported by some of his lines in s2), and aziraphale to be either - as you put it - the damsel/object character in the piece, and/or the sidekick. when aziraphale speaks up and offers himself as an equal party, this rocks that dynamic - so like the bench scene where crowley mentions the hellhound, and aziraphale challenges him, this could in part be dissociation (far be it for me to argue with a - i'm surmising - MH professional, of course!), but i personally read this as superiority. crowley didn't think it was important information because he was sure his plan would work (and that the dog would be sent away unnamed), and therefore it never came up because he deemed it irrelevant. it's only when aziraphale entertains the possibility that the hellhound could derail the scheme that the narrative track changes, to which aziraphale offers up a solution (to stop the dog).

when it comes to lying about living in the bentley, i do like your point that crowley may not be able to actually keep track of what he's revealing and what he's concealing, but this again comes back to my personal aversion to this being a side-effect of the memory wipe theory or indeed a result of dissociation through trauma. i personally think crowley is just a very good, and prolific, liar. he asks aziraphale in s1 if "[he] would lie to [him]", as if he doesn't, but we know that he does. we literally see him lie (largely by omission, granted) to aziraphale throughout s1 and s2, and he certainly has a proclivity for lying to everyone else (i realise that hell are portrayed as being a little bit dim, but i don't think that's wholly true - i think crowley shrewdly capitalises on their little understanding of earth and its goings-on). i think this goes some way to arguing that him getting caught up in figurative knots is not due to misremembering what he reveals/conceals, but instead that he perhaps tells so many half-truths that he can't keep them straight anymore.

i completely agree with your reading of crowley's lines about knowing aziraphale for "millions of years" etc. there is no timescale before The Beginning that can be quantified, and so 'millions of years' does probably hit the mark as close to the truth as we or he can describe to humans (how do you tell humans with a lifespan of c. 85 years that you have known another being beyond infinity, beyond time?). but 'been talking to [aziraphale]' for that time? same as you, it strikes me as an exaggeration based off of the narrative we have so far - we only have the one pre-fall scene, and if consider how they react to each other on the wall of eden, and the times they meet thereafter... that doesn't quite ring true in the way that i think crowley thinks he means. they were acquaintances, at best, for a good proportion of their association.

the same goes for "spent our entire existence pretending that we aren't [a group of the two of us]"- this reads to me as a complete romanticisation of their dealings with each other, especially in the earlier days of their history where the narrative only supports that they came together at certain points, and even out of those points only a couple showed them working in tandem with each other. even the arrangement is indicated to be borne out of self-serving interest; of course, crowley might have internally meant it as a way of getting to spend more time with aziraphale, or that during the course of the arrangement it came to mean that, but we have no narrative confirmation of either. so, I essentially refer back to my point about lying: it seems to me that crowley is able to lie to others well, but potentially to no one better than himself. i personally don't think it's anything to do with his memory, even if only for the view that i think it would remove too much accountable characterisation from him. i'd rather he be fundamentally flawed in true character than an external force dictate his character for him - same as aziraphale and the coffee theory, in essence.

when we come to the hellfire execution, i do think in part it's because crowley's scared as a result of what happened, and what it directly means for aziraphale's safety - a trauma response, like you said. but i don't think that's the whole reason. i do still think, as i said in the LWA response you linked, that it's in part because he wants to shelter aziraphale from knowing how much of an outsider he is to heaven, something that he knows is important to aziraphale, even if it would be in crowley's interests to tell aziraphale exactly this - in this respect, this is truly a grey-area decision in which crowley responds arguably selflessly. but i do also think it's potentially crowley misappropriating aziraphale's trust in him. that crowley sees himself as aziraphale's saviour, and responsible for his safety, to the point of removing any agency from aziraphale to be a key player in his own safeguarding, and crowley tends to him like he's made of glass, pushing away unseen forces that he thinks would make him smash. we see that aziraphale is able to protect himself, he's more than capable of it (and we know that crowley on some level knows this too), but he chooses to interpret crowley's... mothering? as something that makes crowley happy, essentially encouraging it, even when he recognises that it's dismissive of his own capability. what this says about aziraphale's view of himself is another post, however.

but this take on crowley believing himself to be responsible for aziraphale's safety feels especially pertinent when you look at ep4; aziraphale's life (such as it is) is in crowley's hands, and aziraphale is trusting him to miss. there's arguably no actual teamwork here, and to be honest there isn't even really a stake; aziraphale is handing over everything to crowley (he doesn't actively do anything himself to work with crowley to ensure he isn't shot) and they could easily have walked off stage when realising their miracles don't work. but, at aziraphale's insistence, crowley plays along and is put in a position of needing to succeed. this situation is entirely a reflection on aziraphale - he should have called it off, and had many opportunities to do so up until the actual rifle fire - but crowley potentially takes this to mean that aziraphale can't be trusted with his own safety (and this is arguably a belief that i think crowley's held since at least 1793, but probably before). its immediately countered later in the dressing room, however, where aziraphale is the one to save crowley in an instance where there actually are high-risk stakes, but crowley doesn't even acknowledge this in the bookshop afterwards. i think his mind is made up by that point: his role in aziraphale's existence is predominantly to shelter and protect him, especially from himself, and *harks back to where i think crowley's trauma stems from; that he's the only one to see when something is wrong, so he considers it entirely up to him to play saviour - the hero - because no one else can be trusted to see it or do it.

going into your second ask; why aziraphale chooses not to tell crowley about the antichrist. i think it's something that was in another LWA ask(?) but my thoughts are this; crowley has just proposed that aziraphale kill the antichrist. now, we don't have a confirmed reason as to why crowley tries to get aziraphale to do this; it could be that he just really doesn't want to kill children (which, post-job, fair enough), it might be because killing the antichrist himself would send alarm bells to hell that one of their own is working to thwart armageddon by killing their master's child (whereas aziraphale could get away with it), or because he's testing aziraphale to see how far he is willing to go along with crowley on this scheme. it could be all three, plus others, but nothing is confirmed, and the way that crowley broaches this topic is immoral. it comes back to the old standby of a lack of meaningful communication between the two of them; had crowley explained any of these reasons, and asked aziraphale to kill the antichrist, aziraphale may still have refused, but it would have gone some way to giving justification for the ask in the first place, and kept them working as a team. the only reason we get is at the bandstand, "i'm not personally up for killing kids" which, in my eyes, does nothing to help crowley's case here.

but in any case, aziraphale is visibly uncomfortable with it. LWA pointed out in their ask yesterday that aziraphale's responses for not killing a child are arguably just as indicative of a lack in morality as crowley tempting him to it in the first place, and this is true - but his actions after finding out where adam was speaks volumes. it's my personal thought that he is safeguarding adam in the only hands that he knows, at this point, will not harm him: his own. if he tells crowley, he suspects crowley will pressure him into killing adam (which, actually, is the case in ep6 - "until he grows up?! shoot him, aziraphale! - and aziraphale is only stopped by madame tracy). aziraphale has the pretty clear affirmation that heaven/the archangels are not on the side of humanity. so, his last resort is god herself, whom he tries to reach but gets blocked by the metatron who reiterates the party line. aziraphale reassesses, immediately calls crowley to bring him up to speed, and formulate a plan to get to tadfield before everyone else does.

the thing is, the hero narrative for me (once again, something that an ask from my best buddy LWA helped me begin to parse out) swaps immediately on that bench scene. aziraphale takes control, comes up with the solutions to the problems that are being thrown in their path; as you said - stopping the hellhound, returning to tadfield for further reconnaissance, and engaging the WA. these instances, to me, literally show that whilst they're working together, they're not fully working as a team; crowley rather spectacularly messed up on multiple counts, and aziraphale had to claw back some semblance of a cohesive plan to bring everything back to rights. i therefore don't think he's entirely unjustified for the "you" language in the car, given that it was crowley that lost the boy/knows his birthday. if anything, crowley desperately switching to "we" doesn't suggest teamwork to me, but suggests avoidance of any blame that, tbh, sits far more on his shoulders than on aziraphale's, it's the unreliable narrator thing again; same as when he says, "so the humans beat me to it, that's not my fault", he's not accepting any responsibility or accountability for events derailing where he's had an active part in, whether the mistake was innocent or not.

as for aziraphale changing the subject when crowley asks what they do with the child once they find him, bear in mind that crowley nearly runs over a pedestrian, which is the ultimate subject-change here! but then yes, aziraphale does change the subject - because if he can't come up with an answer, is crowley about to suggest they kill the kid again? specifically, that aziraphale kill the child? it's still a boundary that aziraphale is unwilling to cross, but he doesn't have a better idea to counter it (thinking about it, this gives me the same feeling as the resurrectionist episode; when morag dies, crowley practically goads aziraphale for his lack of action. it's not unwarranted, but it is arguably unkind).

when aziraphale picks up the book from the car when they get back to soho, i too think (given god's narration over his particular interest in books of prophecy) aziraphale simply gets distracted. which is a particularly bonehead move given the circumstances, admittedly, because there's nothing at that point to indicate that answers to the antichrist problem would definitely be in the book... it's practically incidental that he comes across the 666 prophecy (i won't be getting into the weeds of parsing out divine intervention, not here!). but his first reaction is to go to archangels with the information, because his naive faith that heaven would want the same for the world as he does (ie. for it to survive, protect the innocent) does logically trump the benefits of telling crowley at this point, now that things have gone to shit.

when that doesn't work, he lies to crowley at the bandstand, but to safeguard the child's safety by doing so. this is, to my mind, the most ethical thing aziraphale can do at this point (and is another instance of where aziraphale, despite crowley being the one to preach the concept to him, is able to more successfully navigate the grey than crowley is). aziraphale is practically left in a position where he does have to operate on his own and by his own terms, because the alternative is not an option. it all roots back to where crowley, imo, should have never entertained tempting aziraphale to kill a child - especially one that by the point of the bandstand aziraphale knows would have been a complete innocent - without either giving full context as to why he was asking, or indeed should have entertained different options to resolve the issue, rather than double down on it at the bandstand.

this is probably the most rambling of my ask responses to date, @on-till-morning, so congratulations!!!✨ i think my bottom line is that i'm entirely empathetic to any trauma crowley (or indeed aziraphale) has, and how it affects their actions in the narrative, but ultimately i do not see it as an excuse; these are beings that are capable of acting and behaving morally and ethically, and it seems that they both fall short of that time and time again - especially the instances where they fail each other. lots of lessons to be learnt in s3!!!

please feel free to come back at any time; these length and complexity of asks make my brain hurt, but my heart sing!!!✨

#not proof read - pretend you do not Perceive The Errors #good omens #ask #oh shit i forgot to tag this #aziraphale meta #crowley meta #s1 meta #s2 meta #memory wipe theory #the fall/the great war spec

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your-fave-adopted-you · 2 years

Note

Hello! I would like to make a request with Crowley reacting to a Father's Day gift 👀

MC are too tired of the irresponsible behavior of their guardian and the chaos that is happening in the NRC, so all they can do is passive aggression

okay this is hilarious.

Guardian! Crowley reacts to a passive-agressive father's day gift

Characters : Crowley

Gn pronouns were used.

TW : none.

Context : It's been some time since you randomly appeared at NRC. It's principal, Crowley, had quickly grown very fond of you and decided to be your guardian.

However, as odd as it sounds, most of the time it felt like you were the one responsible for him, and not the other way around.

Everyone tells you how hard it is to get accepted there, that it's a very professional and organized institution.

Yeah, you're not buying that. Just some days after you were brought here, a dorm leader literally overblotted, and a while after, yet another one did, and so on.

This institution seems to be home for chaos but is your guardian, self proclaimed bestest father, and the one in charge of the whole place doing anything about it?

Nah, he leaves his precious non-magical kid to be (the extreme and dangerous version of) a therapist for literally everyone.

You were fed up with this, but knowing Crowley, complaining wouldn't do much.

Today's father's day.

You had thought about not gifting Crowley anything, as a way of saying "Act more like a father and maybe next year you'll get one"

But that idea made you feel like you were still the parent of this dinamic, scolding the childish one in hopes of correcting his behavior.

Isn't that exactly what you want to stop?

anyways, what should an actual young adult do in this situation?

Yeah, being petty as hell sounds about right.

You were (again) texting your best friend about your frustrations regarding Crowley.

"hey, y/n, would you give me permission to roast your dad?"

"yeah sure."

he had. so many memes prepared for this occasion.

Most he made himself after listening to you complain about the crowdad almost daily. Yep, they were mostly inside jokes.

There was one, however, that caught your attention.

"Pfff i think I may have his father's day gift figured out"

"naaah you're not going to do that, right?"

"😈😈😈"

"RIGHT?"

all of a sudden this is an arts and crafts montage.

You printed the text and stuff and glued it to the thinnest piece of cardboard you could find.

You also told Idia about your idea and he let you use his 3D printer, for the sake of shitpost.

Once it was done, it looked so professional, like if you had bought it for like, 2$ at the gas station.

"5minutes b4 disaster" was the caption of an (intentionally) slightly blurry pic you posted, that showed your magnum opus.

You finally go to the principal's office.

There he is, playing some annoying mobile game that typically pops up as an ad for a relatively better game way too often.

you give him your beautifully wrapped gift.

"OH! MY PRECIOUS, BEAUTIFUL Y/N!!! I KNEW YOU WOULDN'T FORGET!"

why. does he always have to yell.

as he unwraps your gift, the smile in his faces just gets wider.

"YOU-"

oh my god.

"YOU MADE AN ACTION FIGURE OF YOUR BELOVED DAD?? WHY! I TOTALLY DESERVE THIS!! my sweet, sweet y/n, i know see how you may feel about HAVING THE BEST DAD EVER!!"

yeah he's totally ignoring the package.

the worst part is- you're convinced he read the whole thing, but he's just delusional.

your mission has been a total failure.

The next time you go to his office, you notice the figure on his desk, next to a post-it drawing of you, looking up to the it and smiling.

there's also multiple printed pictures of you (some taken from your social media and a couple paparazzi style)

he's ... actually working on some paperwork, wow. he seems very content.

for just this time. you can let him win.

#twst x mc #twst x reader #dire crowley

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liviavanrouge · 1 year

Text

Styx Livia Au

Let me just start off by saying, it came as a shock to Diasomnia when they were informed that Livia had an accident

Ortho tells them that Livia got injured fighting Idia and it got worse when she suddenly coughed up a ton of blot

Livia is actually revived by Idia himself

The only downside is that she doesn't know who anyone is other than the Ignyhide students

She has to stay contained in a room for three days due to attacking some of the workers

Ortho is the one who teaches her emotions, learning with her as he learns about his new "heart*

Silver is the most devastated and ends up being silent much more often

Livia runs into him and informs him that she looked up cures for depression

It ends up confusing her when Silver walks the other way

Idia cannot handle Livia, she's too troublesome and threatens people a lot with her blasters

Livia on the other hand does instinctively get closer with Epel, Rozzie, Azul and Kalim

It confuses her as to why she feels care for these people

Ortho isn't able to answer her question, fearing that she'd short circuit

Mr and Mrs Shroud become unofficial parents to Livia

She enjoys being around them

Helps them whenever she can

And even makes them digital drawings she's thought up

She literally becomes an unofficial member, and they absolutely love her!

Livia spends more time at Styx than at NRC, due to Crowley fearing for what she might blow up

No matter what, Livia is always present during phantom testing

Most of the time she activates her defense mechanism and ends up destroying more dangerous phantoms

"Livia, you can't keep blowing up the experiments!" "He bad, he very bad! Needed blowy uppie!"

She leaves Styx more than anyone, even though she's the most powerful Android that has been created there

Something astounding happened one day while Livia was at NRC

She approached Silver and called him big brother

She's immediately taken back by Idia and Ortho to be analyzed

Everyone finds out that Livia regained memories that had Silver in them

The only other person she remembered was SILVER

Silver out of everyone in the school, she started to remember

Silver is allowed to keep Livia now that she knows who he is

"What now, big brother?" "Ah...we go back to the school"

He's relieved she remembers him, but is still hurt since he misses the alive Livia

The human Livia...his real sister

Things go back to normal, but Livia notices that Silver is a bit distant with her

She doesn't push

People need their own time to recover

Livia remembering him helped with his depression

But he's still mostly silent and distant with everyone

Mr and Mrs Shroud gift Livia a charging tree

She got so excited, the lights blew out

"THE LIGHTS!!!" "My, my, who knew such a gift could make her do that..."

Livia doesn't need to recharge daily

She can go four days without charging, but she's usually sleeping like a jaguar in her charging tree

As mentioned before, Livia spends a lot of her days at Styx

Which means Silver doesn't get to see her often

Livia does work like paperwork, guarding the workers during experiments, patrolling the halls, etc

She hangs around Mrs Shroud a lot, and even brings the woman food to eat

There are times where things poke at the back of Livias head

She says it's like her mind is trying to make her remember something

She shrugs it off though and continues working

She's surprised when she gets gifts sent to her by Leona and Vil

But she returns the gifts, leaving letters that say she has no need for them

Unknowingly she hurt their feelings

Leona is the one to snap first, yelling at Idia about this being his fault

Vil snaps afterwards, which worries Golden

Idia starts working on a way to restore Livias memories

No luck

Everything was lost

And Livia bring the most powerful Android in Styx

They couldn't afford to update her memory base

She might end up being too strong to control

Livia ends up singing Once Upon a December in front of Idia

It made Idia burst into tears

"I-IDIA?!" "I'M SORRY!! I'M SO SORRY, THIS IS MY FAULT!!"

Idia broke down due to the song, because....

It was the last song Livia sang to him before he himself killed her and caused the blot to appear

Livia had sang the song to him, trying to snap him out of his overblot state

The last words of her song made him freeze

It made him realize what he did

And Livia died because of his mistake

Livia comforts him as he cried, patting his back

He hugs her tight, crying and apologizing

She's confused about why he was apologizing to her but forgives him

Idia did not take it well...

"I-It's alright! I forgive you!" "NO!!!! YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO!!!!!!"

He screamed at her to get out

Ortho had to pull a startled and hurt Livia out of the room before Idia's hair busted into flames

Idia stayed holed up in his room for three weeks

She always dropped off food outside his door each day

And would even bring him new figurines

She does check to see if he got the items

He always did and left a thank you note

When he came out, he apologized for screaming at her

Livia easily forgives him and starts to hang out with him again

Idia just smiles and pats her head

Lilia offered Idia some of his cooking to make him feel better

Livia nearly blew his head off...........

It was lucky that Lilia dodged or he'd be missing a head

Something inside her deep within her memory made her react that way

As if someone screamed danger at her at the sight of the pot in the faes hands

Lilia does not take her hostility towards him well

To be honest, he visibly cried in front of everyone the moment he saw Android Livia

"My baby doesn't remember me...this is too cruel!!!" "Father...."

Livia at times ends up coming to see Lilia, bothering him with endless questions

She doesn't know why!

Whenever she has a question

He just comes to mind instantly

Her mind tell her that his cooking is dangerous

But it also tells her to go annoy him endlessly

Lilia genuinely enjoys her company

He answers her questions with amusement

And at times entertains her with magic tricks

"WOWIE! AMAZING!!" "I know right, wanna see more?" "Yes!!"

He sees the real Livia in this Android one

Even though she's different and doesn't remember him

She's still his precious baby girl

Even though she's not the Livia he once knew

The Ramshackle quadruple are visited by Livia a lot

She brings them blankets, groceries, clothes, etc, etc

She even helps fix the dorm up AND cooks them food

Grim at times stares at her but runs away when she moves to speak with him

Oz avoids her as much as he can but he does greet her when she visits

Aura is always seen reading a book on revival spells

Livia got totally freaked out

Ollie, poor sweet Ollie, bursts into tears whenever Livia gives her a daisy

Livia wonders why she cares about two humans, a bear beastman and a strange cat beast so much

Once again, she shrugs it off

She WANTS to remember these people

She WANTS to be around them

But something in her mind is telling her that she doesn't deserve to know

That she doesn't deserve happiness

That.....she's a danger to everyone

Everyone stops seeing Livia more often after those thoughts occur

Idia informs them that she started overworking herself at Styx

She refuses to leave....

#twst livia #twst lilia #twst silver #twst epel #twst idia #twst ortho #twst vil #twst leona #livia vanrouge #twst oc #twst ollie #grim twst #twst aura #twst oz #twst azul #twst kalim #twst rozzie #twst golden #styx livia au

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starlit-miasmas · 1 year

Text

good omens season 2 is real and im even more insane than the previous post. Fuck, Dude. ep4-6 thoughts and spoilers under the cut <3 a bit less than coherent

EP4 zira named the bentley "lesi".. or maybe its always been named lesi and crowley just never uses its name.

"you don't seem [crowley's] type at all" you'd be surprised! they've been in love since the Beginning :)

oh shit i just realized the crank crowley uses to wind up the stars is the same as the thing he has at the end of s1 when they're facing off satan. i have no idea what the thing actually is? but they look the same!

also back at the blitz ayy. hell really sent nazi zombies after them to find out if they're """fraternizing"""

love them just casually driving through burning buildings, and zira with the 🥰 face

zira's magician career, failing for over a hundred years. both instances we've been shown have involved guns i think! incredibly funny of zira to be the one between them with a firearms license.

"no need to thank me, that's what...friends...are for!" what if i died. accept that you're friends. dude just walked into a church for you!!

everyone's just ignoring the literal zombies walking around. i mean, what would you Actually do if you saw dead people walking around. it's like that one guy who didn't know if he should point out crowley's car was on fire in s1

"you need someone you can really trust to pull off this trick!" crowley going like 🤨 . i love them. trust <333

zira has such bad stage presence. im sorry to say it but its true. hes so bad at it.

the whole shooting scene was so tense my bones hurted. crowley why'd you agree to this when you don't know how to use a gun 😭

love that furfur(??)s reasoning that clearly they're in cahoots was that the trick needs someone you can trust

"shall we retire the act?" and then warlocks birthday party. cant believe they gave ziras shitty magician skills lore

"i knew youd come through for me. you always do. " "well, you said 'trust me'" "and you did :)" i love them so much. almost as much as they love each other!

"maybe there is something to be said for...shades of grey?" is this an innuendo. i know theyre talking about moral ambiguity. but.

watched this w my family and called this scene gay. they were literally drinking wine by candlelight with just the two of them. my dad said "they're just friends" im gonna sob.

EP5 idk if i said it in the last post but why does crowley bother to keep driving back and forth, just move in with your boyf already you know you want to.

zira willfully giving away books thats how you know the end times are upon us

how the fuck is hell understaffed. only 70 demons willing to do battle??? damn!

i love crowley just sauntering around in the back while ziras doing business, he j like me fr.

crying they finally got properly asked if they're dating. crowley having Thoughts and Realizations about it...

the demon that keeps asking questions is an excellent audience member. winning the participation points.

crowley getting mad at jim and protective over zira ❤️ window was a bit far, but damn go off. crowley doing a nice deed and then "no one will ever believe you"ing jim. of course he would

the ball is so offputting, the way everyone just falls into their roles and the ""seamstress"" cant say her actual job. terrifying. bad vibes .

crowley telling nina to trust somebody for once in her life while pointing to the shop of the only being he's ever trusted..... feelings

and oh fuck its the 1/75th of a legion of hell

crowley yelling at them that they are out of order is great. i love zira and crowley telling the angels + demons how things are done around here.

the greenish light outside the windows is excellent ambience. i love jims jacket its so ostentatious.

ZIRA DRAGGING CROWLEY TO THE DANCE FLOOR HELL YEAH!! i love banter argument dancing.

jim is a fool. the selflessness is appreciated though! albeit ultimately useless. where did he get the coat its fanatastic.

crowley just bullshitting bureaucratic nonsense at them, he's great.

shax has great hair in this scene though.

"why don't you make your own plans" "it makes [crowley] so happy to save me :)" theyre so silly.

meanwhile crowley getting himself "arrested":

EP6 oh good lord we're really in it now

zira having battery operated candles and the bajillion fire extinguishers.....bookshop burning down done left its mark

crowley's heaven fit is great. the gold snake tattoo is a neat touch

maggie flipping off the demons was absolutely iconic of her but oh balls you really gotta think about your wording at a time like this 😭

not a fan of the minor employment of the "i grew up with brothers so im a bad bitch" trope but ehhhhhhh

poor muriel they got crowley scheme'd 😔 i love muriel they're just doing their best, ok, and thats enough :)

magnus archives reference: why do fire extinguishers keep working against the supernatural! pretty convenient for them ig

zira Is crowleys emotional support angel, thank u very much. crowley is zira's emotional support demon too ❤️

gabriel got yoiten! bro got fired because he realized he wanted armageddon't not armageddo. it Is, in fact, an Institutional Problem.

did not expect halos to be functionally the same as bombs but i havent read the bible in years, what do i know

love crowley hearing ziras done something and immediately zooping back.

i love crowley just scolding everyone for being idiots, how is he the one with the braincell.

"if we do a miracle together it all works too well" YEAH what they thought was a teeny half miracle on each of their parts was apparently strong enough to be mistaken for a fucking archangel??? the power of love!!

and then the unexpected ineffable bureaucracy win???? i thought the fly was just beez snooping about at first but No it was gabriel being gaybriel and storing his entire being in a gift from beez.

angels and demons surreptitiously meeting up for meals has always been the answer. except ineffable bureaucracy dont actually eat but its the sentiment that counts :D

gabe deciding he likes 'everyday' just because beez likes it and then that being the only thing he remembers solidly when he's not actively straining his brain??? im so soft.

in a second stunning act of homoblindness my dad asked "why do they keep meeting up 🤨" to this montage. truly a bruh moment

gabe miracling the jukebox to always play beez's favorite song..... bro is down bad. the whole ineffable bureaucracy montage was SO FUCKING SWEET i love them so much i didnt expect to come out of this as an ineffable bureaucracy truther but im glad i did

"something that mattered more to me than choosing sides" 😭 theyre holding hands .............

and then the family-dinnercore bickering match 💀 none of these mfs are mature. love zira scolding them. ineffable husbands rly flexing their parenting muscles this season

"wherever beezlebub is, is my heaven" "and wherever you are, is my hell" this hurts so much against the ineffable husbands finale but we'll get there. and then they vanish off to loveland or something ❤️ happy for them, im glad at least two people got a happy ending out of this. they chose the side of love ❤️

and then uh. Fucking Metatron. fuck. the ominous music when they go out on their Stroll.

so soft for the scene with crowley putting everything back in order in the bookshop. domestic as hell. the soft music. crowley just knowing how everything is Supposed to be. <3

nina and maggie come to make ineffable husbands get their shit together! love nina calling maggie 'angel', sure wonder where she got that from..

the boys are gonna talk about their feelings?! no. no they aren't, actually. everything's gonna go to shit instead. god i cannot put my feelings on this scene into anything coherent. i am in pain.

because its always been crowley advocating for Their Side and zira's believed heaven is Absolute Good and shit and of course that's what takes them apart 😭 because fucking TRAGEDIES and the narrative is out for these fuckers.

zira please 😭 its you two on earth, you two together on Your Side. not you two ruling heaven together 😭 in shambles. suffering.

i didnt actually absorb crowleys confession enough because the brain was melting into jello but fuck dude.

NO MORE NIGHTINGALES. THE KISS. ZIRA TOUCHING HIS FACE AFTER. FUCK! it was a win for TWO SECONDS. 😭

LOVE LOST. THANK YOU AND GOODNIGHT.

#good omens #good omens season 2 #good omens 2 spoilers #gos2 #gos2 spoilers #religion cw

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existentialflirt · 1 year

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Finished s2 of Good Omens and I am UNWELL. Because I need to yell about it, I'm very sorry. It is going under a cut if anyone who is following me hasn't finished and is allergic to spoilers. Idek. Idek. I have been a wreak. I woke up early and binged the last two and uggggh the end. Fuck. Right. Under the cut we go.

So....so uh, where to start that won't get me angry again? To say that I have ISSUES with the ending is an understatement because look fucking look, this is not about the ship. I mean it is but it isn't, it's about the fact that it does not make sense for Aziraphale. Is does not and I'm going to unpack that in a second but first i want to talk about the canonization of an apparent rare pair (I don't know. I don't tend to lurk in single fandom spaces much and I'm pretty new to Good Omens, but Mo has been and he mentioned the fandom quite fancied Beelzebub and Gabriel as an item so fine). I do not understand it as an arc if it wasn't supposed to twig something in our angel's pretty little head like oh hey, this seems familiar. I understand it's a way to free up the head angel position in heaven and that's all well and good but the writing is usually so much tighter than that so I call it sloppy. AND I DO GET THAT THIS ISN'T THE END BUT SEASON 3 IS A LONG WAY OFF AND WHO KNOWS WITH THIS STRIKE AND THE STUDIOS BEING MONSTERS LIKE FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. I mean yes Neil has promised if he cannot get it renewed as a series, he will get it done another way and I trust him. gdi, i trust him because that ending destroyed me.

Right so, I'm getting incoherent, sorry.

Now, if we want to talk rationally, it does make sense for Aziraphale to get sweet talked by Metatron (and presumably God, by that measure). I do. He gave him coffee and talked like a dear old man, really playing up the freedom he'd have to continue to associate with Crowley. Combined with that, Aziraphale having a lot of doubts about what's going on in heaven, since oh you know, the whole Job incident (loved that whole story, my god, the end murdered me and set me down in a shallow grave. In a good way), and that's partially from Crowley's influence. But why in heaven would he think that offering Crowley to be reinstated as an angel would please him at all?????

Crowley has made it extremely clear since he fell that he doesn't give two shits about any side but his (which in time extended to theirs, Aziraphale and him against the world. At one point almost literally). So why??? Why would he think it's something he'd want, even with a nice coat of paint? I mean, maybe it could be said that he was blinded by Crowley's acts of kindness and mercy and thought that maybe if he spun it as they can go up there and change things, that Crowley's distaste toward heaven has to do with the fact that he could run it together. It wasn't. He was mad about unanswered questions and the prospect of the universe, which he played a part in creating, being destroyed. (I have a lengthier head canon about that, tbh, which is will pen in time). It just doesn't serve any narrative for the characters aside from we're setting up for the third season on a cliffhanger (and yes, yes, Neil couldn't have predicted the WGA/SAG-AFRA strike. He says he had been working on it but stopped for the strike, which good on him. We stan, but also god what piss poor timing to destroy the fans with this angst)

Now look, the performances are gorgeous. Always perfect. David and Micheal are incredible together and I would have been FINE been FINE with that argument in the store, Crowley practically begging Aziraphale to run away together and that desperate fucking kiss, but I don't understand Azirapale remaining resolute. I don't. I really don't. He should have done....well, so many things instead that would have been a better close to this particularly romantic arc.

Argh. Anyway Mo and I will be mostly sticking with season 1/Book canon and cherry picking from season 2 because we are coping or diverting that ending so they can have their US TIME god fucking dammit.

As a side note: I did not appreciate Maggie and Nina lecturing Crowley about him needing to be more emotionally cognizant about his feelings toward Aziraphale. Like, I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be obnoxious here, but Crowley is as clearly in love with Aziraphale as anyone can be. He makes time for him, indulges the angel, and is very protective. In season one he also begged Aziraphale to run away with him. He literally wants nothing but his car and to be with Aziraphale and he rarely appeared too conflicted about it. Yes, he has demurred about them being together but that has nothing to do with his feelings and everything to do with the fact that Aziraphale is rather oblivious when it comes to his own emotions. Crowley is the one that has emotional intelligence. Aziraphale needs to be walloped over the head about it. Hell, I would have preferred Maggie and Nina talk to Aziraphale and Metatron talk to Crowley as a bit of an inversion. Could you imagine, God knowing how Crowley is really not great with this whole being evil thing deep down and maybe even feeling a bit bad about casting him out, so sends Metatron to offer him a job (that would have been fitting of his former rank, to boot). Crowley tells him to eat shit, he and Aziraphale have a moment in the bookstore, Crowley ranting and raving about the offer and they should maybe fuck off for awhile and Aziraphale finally opening up that big box of feelings and realizing what Crowley has given up for him, risked for him, and oh my god, I should save this for a thread idea.

Anyway, whew sorry for this. I just needed to get it out in words.

#*sighs* this is no shade toward Neil #honestly #I've skimmed a few articles and seen some tweets where he definitely does not mean to leave at this #so I'm fine #I really am #I'm not #but I still think it's sloppy and more serves THE SERIES as a piece of media than the characters or narrative #and I can't stress enough how tight the writing has been in this series so maybe that may play a part in my annoyance #it was a fine ending for anything of similar ilk but not Good Omens #for this series it was sloppy #if you need me I'll be trying to dig out of a fresh grave and gaslighting myself into a happy ending #Good Omens Spoilers tw #Good Omens Spoilers cw #spoilers tw #spoilers cw

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autisticandroids · 2 years

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1 and 20 for fanfic ask :)

1. what’s the fic youre most proud of?

so the easy answer here is i fold in half so easily. i actually like... i didn't start writing that one as like a Big Project? i started writing it to procrastinate my other projects. I didn't notice it turning into this massive like, carefully thought out monstrosity basically until i posted it. and then it just kind of... after the fact, it kind of became all i thought about. like i started kind of self-referentially paying attention most to the interpretations i presented in that fic. which sounds pretty narcissistic, and yeah it is i'm a writer. i like my own work. sue me. like a lot of the things i said in the months afterward kinda came from the i fold in half so easily extended universe, you know? and it's so funny because it was intended as like, a little side project that i wasn't meant to care about much. half of it was literally just me trying my hand at something. like, did you know i fold in half so easily was inspired by beat sheet? like, part of the purpose of that fic was me being like "i wonder if i can do the thing saltyfeathers did so well where they had a main character with ZERO thoughts about salient topics." genuinely i fold in half so easily was partly just me experimenting with that. but then it became this big Thing. and then i wrote that big director's commentary for it and was like "wait hey i actually put a lot of thought into this!!! hey!!" and also other people were obsessed with it which was very exciting. and like looking back there's parts of it i am a little embarrassed by? at the time i was NOT happy with the "i can be your guy" scene and i really still am not, but it does convey something important that i wasn't sure how to get across in a less heavyhanded manner. but i've kind of made my peace with it. but nowadays i'm kind of unhappy with the ending. it's too melodramatic. if i were to write it again now cas' breakdown would be much quieter and maybe a bit more private, because i don't think him yelling at sam and then physically running out of the room is realistic, y'know? i mean the yelling at sam is probably necessary to get my point across but then he should have walked away instead of run. but overall i am quite happy with it. so probably i fold in half so easily.

i have to say though that the fic i am most proud of lately is so much smoke in a hall of mirrors. like i sat on that for a long time, i mean, i started it in december of 2020 and it just percolated. but i spend a lot of time just trying to figure out how to integrate season six destiel stuff with season six angel civil war stuff in a way that felt like each were given an appropriate weight. like the thing is i frequently find that destiel fic does not acknowledge the importance of like. non-dean factors in cas' angel revolution. at the same time, you can't make sense of season six without destiel. and not just dean as a distraction from the war, but dean and cas' desire for him as a massive complicating and motivating factor. like, maybe the most crucial thing for cas in season six is that he feels completely isolated and like no one would ever understand him and everyone would turn on him if they knew what he was doing (and he was kind of right but it's also a self-fulfilling prophecy kind of). and this is partly about crowley but it's also absolutely about dean. cas knows that his obsession with dean is both strange and would be strange to other angels, and also on some level impure. like he may or may not actually know that it's about sex, but he is absolutely aware that there's something selfish and uncomfortable about it. so having this desire he can't explain to himself or anyone else or even let anyone else (except maybe crowley, whom he hates) even KNOW about is this intensely isolating experience, which works in perfect harmony with having to lie to all his troops about tactical moves and shit and get them killed for no reason (because cas is working with crowley, which they can't know about, and he is gonna become god and win the whole war at once, eventually, so they just have to keep going til then). like basically cas has every reason to feel just totally alone and set upon from every angle. and his desire for dean is a piece of that but also not all of it. so i'm very proud of i guess successfully threading that needle. i still don't know if i was totally successful, i'm not sure if elements of it really came across? i'm not sure cas' feeling of pointlessness due to his godstiel plan actually makes sense to anyone but me. plus there's bits i'm not happy with (really mainly the ending sex scene which just is not sexy). but i am proud of it. and it's funny because no one read it, which i was kind of shocked by, because it's one of my most palatable-to-the-average-heller fics, i think. but at the same time it's nice to know i can be really proud of something without necessarily getting a bunch of attention and praise from it from people who aren't my closest friends.

20. What’s the greatest gift you’ve gotten from your writing?

um... if we were being tongue in cheek i would say like, attention? but honestly not that. like i could get so much more attention by just posting, if i wanted. what i get out of writing is like... it makes me feel competent and like i can accomplish tasks that i set myself to and boosts my confidence.

and then the other thing is that in the supernatural fandom specifically, it makes me feel like i'm earning my place at the table. like, i just kind of accidentally became a well known supernatural guy by posting a lot, and don't get me wrong, it was nice, but i also was like... i'm just a guy who posts!! i don't really contribute anything!! why are you guys admiring me, a guy who just posts my unedited thoughts for the world to look at, when you could be admiring people who write fucking novels on the archive of our own. so it was really nice once i was able to start putting out a decent amount of fanfiction i was happy with, to feel like i was able to really bring something to the table. my amvs helped too, obviously, but just in terms of personal tast i tend to prefer reading fanfiction to watching amvs, so while i respect the technical craft involved in making amvs a lot, fanfiction feels more like a contribution to people's enjoyment.

#spn #asks #outdean

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