179 posts
Latest Posts by sibs20 - Page 3
Wow, i can't believe Izzy Hands retired at the end of episode 8 and started a prosthetic business at the republic of pirates.
Me seeing the CC notice at the top of the neuroqueer identity essay: HOLY SHIT TMA REFERENCE?
give that woman a buzzcut give that man a ponytail put her in suits put him in dresses this has been a public service announcement
i could always rely on you, you could always rely on me
"kill them with kindness" WRONG. FISH🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟
Can someone funnier than me add captions on these pictures to make it seem like a What we do in the shadow type mockumentary interview of Stede and Ed's feelings about each other
we all know a guy who got cursed forever to sleep on a twin sized mattress in somebody’s attic or basement their whole life
an assistant (trust me, this's what actually happened in ep.4)
crowley avoiding the bookshop like it's consecrated ground is definitely one of my favourite options for how he deals with the break-up but have you considered the opposite?
he returns to tell muriel how to take care of it (don't sell books, get rid of customers, dust, drink tea, read, nothing else), and then he sinks back into his chair. it is still in the same spot as he put it while waiting for aziraphale to return, still catches as much of the sunlight throughout the day as possible, still smells like earl grey, and vanilla, and a hint of cinnamon.
still smells like his angel.
crowley sits down, takes off his shades and leaves them in their usual spot, and then he allows his human form to fade away until a smaller version of the serpent of eden is curled up on the cushions.
muriel knows, of course they do, and as their time on earth forces them to mature like it does with any celestial being staying for an extended amount of time, they ache for crowley. they make sure he's warm and protected, and that is all they really can do.
he doesn't quite sleep, it's more of a hibernation or whatever imitation he can manage, and he waits. maybe it's stupid, maybe it's hopeless, maybe it is useless optimism, but he has to cling to the possibility of aziraphale coming back for him.
crowley dreams of eden. damp earth and lush plants, sweet fruit and humming insects, and an angel offering kindness to someone who fell from grace
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edit: continuation here
it never hit me how shortsighted Heaven is until i realized they put a Principality (whose entire raison d’être is to protect places and people from harm) in charge of Earth, and then were genuinely surprised when Armageddon came and said Principality went absolutely off-the-grid feral trying to stop it
on-screen lovers and off-screen besties is literally the best dynamic ever
I'm a firm believer that Aziracrow will make up, HOWEVER I think Aziraphale will NEVER hear the end of it.
*500 years later: Aziraphale doing something accidentally* "Oops, sorry"
*Crowley, mockingly* "I fOrGiVe yOu"
*Sigh* "Crowley, I said I was sorry! Will you let it go, please?"
*Crowley, dramatically falling back on his chair, still doing the mocking voice* "cOmE wItH mE tO hEaVeN"
Awhile ago @ouidamforeman made this post:
This shot through my brain like a chain of firecrackers, so, without derailing the original post, I have some THOUGHTS to add about why this concept is not only hilarious (because it is), but also...
It. It kind of fucks. Severely.
And in a delightfully Pratchett-y way, I'd dare to suggest.
I'll explain:
As inferred above, both Crowley AND Aziraphale have canonical Biblical counterparts. Not by name, no, but by function.
Crowley, of course, is the serpent of Eden.
(note on the serpent of Eden: In Genesis 3:1-15, at least, the serpent is not identified as anything other than a serpent, albeit one that can talk. Later, it will be variously interpreted as a traitorous agent of Hell, as a demon, as a guise of Satan himself, etc. In Good Omens --as a slinky ginger who walks funny)
Lesser known, at least so far as I can tell, is the flaming sword. It, too, appears in Genesis 3, in the very last line:
"So he drove out the man; and placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." --Genesis 3:24, KJV
Thanks to translation ambiguity, there is some debate concerning the nature of the flaming sword --is it a divine weapon given unto one of the Cherubim (if so, why only one)? Or is it an independent entity, which takes the form of a sword (as other angelic beings take the form of wheels and such)? For our purposes, I don't think the distinction matters. The guard at the gate of Eden, whether an angel wielding the sword or an angel who IS the sword, is Aziraphale.
(note on the flaming sword: in some traditions --Eastern Orthodox, for example-- it is held that upon Christ's death and resurrection, the flaming sword gave up it's post and vanished from Eden for good. By these sensibilities, the removal of the sword signifies the redemption and salvation of man.
...Put a pin in that. We're coming back to it.)
So, we have our pair. The Serpent and the Sword, introduced at the beginning and the end (ha) of the very same chapter of Genesis.
But here's the important bit, the bit that's not immediately obvious, the bit that nonetheless encapsulates one of the central themes, if not THE central theme, of Good Omens:
The Sword was never intended to guard Eden while Adam and Eve were still in it.
Do you understand?
The Sword's function was never to protect them. It doesn't even appear until after they've already fallen. No... it was to usher Adam and Eve from the garden, and then keep them out. It was a threat. It was a punishment.
The flaming sword was given to be used against them.
So. Again. We have our pair. The Serpent and the Sword: the inception and the consequence of original sin, personified. They are the one-two punch that launches mankind from paradise, after Hell lures it to destruction and Heaven condemns it for being destroyed. Which is to say that despite being, supposedly, hereditary enemies on two different sides of a celestial cold war, they are actually unified by one purpose, one pivotal role to play in the Divine Plan: completely fucking humanity over.
That's how it's supposed to go. It is written.
...But, in Good Omens, they're not just the Serpent and the Sword.
They're Crowley and Aziraphale.
(author begins to go insane from emotion under the cut)
In Good Omens, humanity is handed it's salvation (pin!) scarcely half an hour after losing it. Instead of looming over God's empty garden, the sword protects a very sad, very scared and very pregnant girl. And no, not because a blameless martyr suffered and died for the privilege, either.
It was just that she'd had such a bad day. And there were vicious animals out there. And Aziraphale worried she would be cold.
...I need to impress upon you how much this is NOT just a matter of being careless with company property. With this one act of kindness, Aziraphale is undermining the whole entire POINT of the expulsion from Eden. God Herself confronts him about it, and he lies. To God.
And the Serpent--
(Crowley, that is, who wonders what's so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil anyway; who thinks that maybe he did a GOOD thing when he tempted Eve with the apple; who objects that God is over-reacting to a first offense; who knows what it is to fall but not what it is to be comforted after the fact...)
--just goes ahead and falls in love with him about it.
As for Crowley --I barely need to explain him, right? People have been making the 'didn't the serpent actually do us a solid?' argument for centuries. But if I'm going to quote one of them, it may as well be the one Neil Gaiman wrote ficlet about:
"If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization." --Robert G. Ingersoll
The first to ask questions.
Even beyond flattering literary interpretation, we know that Crowley is, so often, discreetly running damage control on the machinations of Heaven and Hell. When he can get away with it. Occasionally, when he can't (1827).
And Aziraphale loves him for it, too. Loves him back.
And so this romance plays out over millennia, where they fall in love with each other but also the world, because of each other and because of the world. But it begins in Eden. Where, instead of acting as the first Earthly example of Divine/Diabolical collusion and callousness--
(other examples --the flood; the bet with Satan; the back channels; the exchange of Holy Water and Hellfire; and on and on...)
--they refuse. Without even necessarily knowing they're doing it, they just refuse. Refuse to trivialize human life, and refuse to hate each other.
To write a story about the Serpent and the Sword falling in love is to write a story about transgression.
Not just in the sense that they are a demon and an angel, and it's ~forbidden. That's part of it, yeah, but the greater part of it is that they are THIS demon and angel, in particular. From The Real Bible's Book of Genesis, in the chapter where man falls.
It's the sort of thing you write and laugh. And then you look at it. And you think. And then you frown, and you sit up a little straighter. And you think.
And then you keep writing.
And what emerges hits you like a goddamn truck.
(...A lot of Pratchett reads that way. I believe Gaiman when he says Pratchett would have been happy with the romance, by the way. I really really do).
It's a story about transgression, about love as transgression. They break the rules by loving each other, by loving creation, and by rejecting the hatred and hypocrisy that would have triangulated them as a unified blow against humanity, before humanity had even really got started. And yeah, hell, it's a queer romance too, just to really drive the point home (oh, that!!! THAT!!!)
...I could spend a long time wildly gesturing at this and never be satisfied. Instead of watching me do that (I'll spare you), please look at this gif:
I love this shot so much.
Look at Eve and Crowley moving, at the same time in the same direction, towards their respective wielders of the flaming sword. Adam reaches out and takes her hand; Aziraphale reaches out and covers him with a wing.
You know what a shot like that establishes? Likeness. Commonality. Kinship.
"Our side" was never just Crowley and Aziraphale. Crowley says as much at the end of season 1 ("--all of us against all of them."). From the beginning, "our side" was Crowley, Aziraphale, and every single human being. Lately that's around 8 billion, but once upon a time it was just two other people. Another couple. The primeval mother and father.
But Adam and Eve die, eventually. Humanity grows without them. It's Crowley and Aziraphale who remain, and who protect it. Who...oversee it's upbringing.
Godfathers. Sort of.
PARALLELS OMFG
Parallels - Good Omens Seasons One & Two - Part One
inside you there are three wolves. one is good omens. second is what we do in the shadows. the third is our flag means death. you are gay and probably neurodivergent
Neil Gaiman I am coming for you
Sitting here watching s2xe5 and it’s the scene where Crowley is asking Aziraphale why his French is so bad and he says “I went to Monsieur Rossignol’s night classes in 1760”.
I decided to Google if this was a real person since the name wasn’t familiar to me, and instead I had my giant gay heart stomped on by Neil Gaiman once again.
The French word for nightingale: Rossignol
It’s the language of romance and Aziraphale took night classes with a Mr. Nightingale. I CAN’T BREATHE.
i didn’t have colin robinson saying “i didn’t have that on my 2023 bingo card” on my 2023 bingo card
wait.
if Nandor knew that the only way to reverse the transformation was to kill the vampire that sired Guillermo...
he was going to travel the world...with his best friend...go back to his home...turn Guillermo at the banks of the Tigris
in s3 finale, after Guillermo had cornered Nandor, proving he can have violent intent towards him, Nandor says, "yes, yes. this is what I've been waiting for. you've passed the test"
but he wasn't talking about being a vampire...
he was talking about what he would have to do after...
wild west minisode where aziraphale is tied to the train tracks damsel style but crowley is taking too long to come to the rescue so aziraphale has to keep miracling the train slower and slower to keep giving him chances
petition to have crowley and aziraphale kiss under the bandstand as a beautiful mirroring of their first breakup, it is raining around them but they are sheltered and safe, together under a canopy, there's no need to protect the other from the rain because the distance between them has been bridged (at last, at last, heart to heart) reblog if u agree
Anyone ever think about the fact that the real life Edward Teach and Stede Bonnet both died in 1718, so just a year after the events of Our Flag Means Death, meaning that we will most likely see them both die at the end of the show.
Yeah, me neither.
girl help the eldritch horrors are organising a pride and prejudice party and making us dance to mirror their forbidden and repressed love. yes there is a michael jackson thriller video reenactment outside trying to get in. no yeah i still want that rare doctor who annual
Aziraphale is the most character ever. He ran out of ideas so he declared war on hell. He canonically says fuck. His favourite colour is yellow. He’s literally an angel and can speak every language on earth but still isn’t fluent in french. He told his boyfriend to shoot him for his magic act and made him go through with it when their miracles weren’t working. He gave away his flaming sword and then lied about it for the next 6000 years. He has a bookshop that never sells books. No one’s doing it like him.
Aziraphale was about to confess too before Metatron and his coffee came into the bookshop;
Okay, hear me out. In 2x02, when they’re talking about “how people fall in love”, Crowley talks about sudden rainstorms,
which is an obvious reference to how he fell in love, about 6000 years earlier (poor demon thinks everyone falls in love the way he did)
Aziraphale doesn’t get it and answers “seems a bit unlikely”. He didn’t connect the dots, he doesn’t think Crowley loves him that way. All he knows about falling in love is what he read in books. Of course he fell in love with Crowley too, but I’m pretty sure he did in ‘41 when Crowley saved his books from a bomb, and that’s a bit hard to recreate, so… balls.
That’s his idea, you make two people dance together and they magically fall in love, which is so in-character I want to scream. Now let’s get to 2x05. We know Aziraphale always tried to avoid organizing those meetings, but he’s suddenly so excited about it he is WILLING TO GIVE AWAY HIS BOOKS. Why would he do something like that? There’s no way it’s actually to make Maggie and Nina fall in love. At that point, Muriel doesn’t even care anymore about it, they all know the truth about the miracle is about to be revealed, so there’s no point in being so persistent about Maggie and Nina’s relationship. He’s an angel; of course he cares about humans being happy, but I don’t think he cares so much about two semi-strangers’ love life that he’s willing to give away BOOKS for the off chance that the Jane Austen method will actually work on two humans he knows nothing about. So, my conclusion is, he’s organizing that night for him and Crowley. They are the ones that he hopes realize they’re deeply in love with each other, and that is something worth giving away books for. Which explains why he’s so excited but also a bit scared when he asks Crowley to dance with him.
It explains why he ignores the fact that Crowley is trying to tell him that something important and dangerous is about to happen, just so they can have a little dance. It also explains this reaction when he sees Gabriel and Beelzebub being in love with each other
and the way he looks at Crowley while they’re talking about them.
I mean, I know he always stares lovingly at him, but not like that, right? That’s a face that screams “I’m so going to tell you I love you when all this is over”.
So, my point is:
Fuck Metatron.
That’s my point.
