A Single Bell @asinglebell - Tumblr Blog

Good Omens Fanfic Recs

In no particular order, but I did try to group them into some categories. Please please please double-check the tags on the actual fics before reading.

#good omens #so many fics #with lots of aspec ones

abluescarfonwaston

Spy x Family is fundamentally an adoption story.

Obviously Anya is adopted. We all know this. She knows this. She loves her family but knows it is incredibly fragile.

But unlike most adoption stories (say Natsume Yuujinchou) Anya is not adopted into a loving functional family who's main goal is to support and love her until she heals from all the hurt she has been through.

Because Everyone in their family is adopted.

Yor enters thinking she is entering an existing family dynamic of a man and his daughter. She is the step mother, eagerly wanted but a definite outsider. She does not know about how they lost Loid's first wife. They both Never mention her but Anya clearly has Huge feelings about her Mommy that she cannot touch. Because Loid refuses to acknowledge her. Which means she's not allowed to.

She's a wife brought in to solve a problem. The fact she adores Anya and loves Loid (eventually) doesn't make her any less of an outsider from her perspective. To Yor she's the adopted family member.

Meanwhile Loid, the one who brought them all together almost instantly finds himself on the outside of the family. He works too much and doesn't make it home for dinner frequently. He struggles to connect with his 'daughter' and wife. Can't understand either of them despite constant efforts. Something incredibly distressing for him.

Yor instantly connects with this child when he struggled to hold her hand in public. In his eyes Yor and Anya are a family and he is the outsider only there for the mission. The man who is destined to Not be there. He too often fills the role of the outside child brought into a happy family. One he constantly feels he is fumbling or failing. (If I'm not good, if i'm not perfect- my family will leave me. So I have to be. I have to figure out how to be better)

They are a family of adopted members all holding so tightly to each other. Each one of them chooses the others over and over again. Struggles against their own limitations and fears to be a part of a family they're all terrified to really call their own.

But it is that choice that makes them a family. Not blood or marriage or any certificate. That they all keep trying to be a family to the others. I'll be a good girl and study hard Papa. I'll be a good wife, I'll play my role well so don't abandon me. I'll be a good father and husband, I will try to be a good husband and father if you both will just stay with me. Please. I will figure out how.

Spy x Family is an adoption story.

iforgiveyouprime

Season one:

One of Adam's freinds: Just because adults muck things up, it's reason to fix it, not destroy it.

Season two:

— But we're not bringing the old ones back?

— Of course not. But we're giving them new ones.

— I think they quite like the old ones...

Season three:

New screenwriters: season one and season two who?

polymona

sunrisesinthesuburbs

How Good Omens lost its heart (and didn’t even fight to get it back)

I distanced myself from the Good Omens fandom lately, and i’m sure this is not a surprise to many of you reading this post. i want to be very clear: neil gaiman had a lot to do with it. I didn’t want to show my support for a show made by an abuser. And yes, i see and hear people claiming Good Omens belonged to the people and the fans, but realistically the rights and royalties belong to ng, and participating in the promotion of it all just felt wrong to me. So, my choice was to love my favorite characters of all time from afar, and for free: reading and writing and engaging with fanworks.

That being said: I really fucking hated the fuckass movie. I wish i didn’t see it, i wish the show stopped at season 1, and if you liked it, good for you. I did not, and I want to tell you why. Feel free to ignore me.

Is that a hole in your plot?

The writing was bad. Content aside, what I wanted for this characters aside, my feelings on ng and the other writers begrudgingly aside, it was a badly written piece of television. I counted too many plot holes in the first thirty minutes aside, but i will point out what felt the biggest to me.

The opening flashback: it was hot, and that was it. Where does it fit in the timeline we already know about? It doesn’t fit with their first meeting as angels, nor with their first meeting on the wall. Why keep rewriting the first time they met? We already know how they met, twice, and besides the sexual tension, what did this new flashback bring to the story? Arguably, nothing; another case of bad wigs, maybe, nothing more. Perhaps, another instance of contradicting the book and the first ever episode: “it starts, as it will end, with a garden.” Well, apparently not.

Skipping all that nonsense in the middle (Aziraphale leaving crowley in the alley? Jesus having two lines after being promoted as the main focus of the season? The book of life burning not immediately snapping aziraphale and crowley away? Crowley having no reaction to Aziraphale confessing undying devotion to him?) let’s get to the very end. The decision the main characters come to is to erase themselves and all traces of their universe to create a new, fresh universe where angels and demons do not exist, and free will reigns above all. Two minutes after, the movie presents us two human versions of said characters meeting again, 13 something billion of years later, falling in love and all that good stuff. What we are supposed to take away from this is: they were destined to meet and fall in love in every universe, no matter the circumstances. Where is the free will in a soulmate trope? Where is the free will in this condoning of predeterminism? If they were meant to be, then free will isn’t ruling this universe. Fate is. Was it all for nothing then?

Who are these characters?

The characters fell flat. The side characters were useless at best, annoying at worst. Michael going rogue was predictable, Jesus was a nothingburger, the entire Whickber Street ensemble was just… not relevant. And the main characters were subjected to the worst character assasination my eyes have ever seen. The worst of it? That entire scene with God and Satan: Crowley never once looking at Aziraphale, not even at the most heartwrenching confession; Aziraphale talking about Crowley being amazing in the past tense; Crowley choosing something that’s not Aziraphale, after his whole entire monologue and character arc in season 2; Aziraphale accepting complete erasure after fighting 3 years in heaven against it, just because lobotomized Crowley wanted it. What the fuck?

Also, Asa and Anthony. They were cute. Adorable, really. Two cute old men (with bad hair, but i’m willing to move past this) falling in love and getting married. Cute cute cute. Who the fuck were they? They were not Aziraphale and Crowley: they were an English librarian and a Scottish professor, not the angel and demon I loved and yearned and was obsessed with for years. And again, if it were them, why weren’t they recognizable at all? In all the human AUs i enjoyed the characters were perfectly recognizable: Crowley was still moody and a bit rough around the edges, yet soft and almost overwhelming in his loveliness; Aziraphale was still witty and smart and a bit (or a lot) of a snob, yet kind and warm and loving to a fault. These two human beings were cute, but they weren’t them. Who are these characters?

The winner takes it all, the loser has to fall

The loser, in this case, being queer people everywhere. Put your daggers down and let me tell you this: it is not acephobic to think a kiss was needed in this finale.

You’re right when you say that physicality is not needed to show love and connection; in this case, however, physicality between them was already a given – they already kissed. Out of desperation, out of despair, out of sadness, but they kissed. They crossed that bridge and their relationship jumped to the other side of strictly platonic and now, for a simple rule of balance and equity in pieces of media, the ‘ugly kiss’ desperately (pardon the repetition) needed a ‘good kiss’. The finger thing could have been cute, but it lacked the depth and emotional weight to carry the conclusion of a third act.

If that was all the goobye we are going to get, it is simply not enough: they wrapped up 6000 years of history (a history they previously spend two seasons fighting tooth and nail to not erase, mind you) with a finger kiss and an awkward smile. Am i supposed to say it was good?

Also, implying that people wanted some physical intimacy between two queer characters (after it was already established) just to satisfy some sort of fetish is too disrespectful to even comment about.

A straight couple would have gotten a teary goodbye, an explicit I love you and a kiss before turning to dust. The gays get buried — or erased from existence, in this case.

Human incarnate, or the lack of it

All in all, the finale felt cheap, flat, soulless. A comedy desperately grasping onto the physycality of it but not really committing to the bit, a love story relying on the chemistry between the mains without letting them have a single meaningful conversation, a show about humanity reducing human beings to comedic reliefs, over-the-top antagonists and afterthoughts easy to erase with a snap of two fingers.

And no, no one got a second chance: Adam rewrote the universe for nothing, Aziraphale tried to fix Heaven for nothing, Crowley asked questions for nothing. It was all erased anyway, and the ones who get to live simply aren’t them. Some version of them that was paradoxically destined to meet, going against the free will they gave up everything for.

Good Omens was always about knowing your fate, and choosing your own anyway. Loving despite, loving because of, loving even if. The love between to immortal beings being what kept everything together. The characters I knew and loved would have kept choosing each other and their world, not another new one, despite everything, because of history, and even if it was the hardest thing.

They loved their world, their Earth, and deserved to live in it. On their own side. Just the two of them.

So I really didn’t like the movie, and the message it sent. I did not find it bittersweet, just bleak. And this is why.

Going forward, I’ll finish every fic I started. After, I don’t know. It may take me a while.

Thanks for reading. Fuck Neil Gaiman and all abusers. Protect and believe victims.

josephbrassey

“Haha remember when murder-hornets were gonna be a thing? What a nothingburger.”

Yes, because the Washington state government activated like a sleeper-cell and ruthlessly, systematically hunted them down and annihilated them.

“Y2K came to nothing amirite?”

Yes because an army of software engineers working around the clock, losing sleep, and busting ass till the last minute prevented it from happening.

“Remember the hole in the ozone layer?”

You mean the one that was fixed through rigorous world wide government action?

One of the root problems of our society is a refusal or inability by media to articulate that all those “it’s gonna be an apocalypse” disasters were not disasters because we collectively did something about them.

The good news is this is actually quite correctable. I maintain my firm belief that we as humans are capable of solving almost all of our problems, when we decide to do so.

And I still think that’s going to happen. I don’t know when or how, but I do know that abandoning hope won’t help bring it about.

And I refuse to let the cynics own a chunk of my heart.

gudamor

Happy Smallpox Eradication Day

beanymachine

I know I’m not alone in this feeling, but I still feel alone. Sorry if this is cringe or overdramatic.

cheeseplants

Fic: Empty page

"Why am I an assistant bookseller?” Aziraphale peers over the desk where Crowley has been furiously scribbling. Crowley blinks, his fingers smudged with blue ink.

“Maybe Anthony finds your lack of authority charming.”

----

What if they wrote their own stories?

Words: 856

Rating: G

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Thanks to @happynachohologram and @ladybracknellssherry for helping beat this into shape while we are broken.

@goodomensafterdark

Not going to be able to articulate this nearly as well as others, but: I’m heartbroken. Not because they didn’t “properly” kiss (I’m ace, and I’ll get to that), not because I didn’t get some other moment I thought was inevitable based on Terry’s comments (I’ll get to that too), but because they no longer exist.

And it didn’t have to be that way.

Every other post comparing this to Job’s children is spot on. These male-presenting humans in the final minutes aren’t our children. These humans share their faces and a few meager traits (stars and books), but that’s it. It’s not them.

The characters we rooted for and loved for over 6000 years of their messy all-too-human-for-celestial-beings love for each other no longer exist. Have *never* existed.

I don’t agree with those who say “without them sacrificing themselves for humanity we wouldn’t have the universe without god/satan/angels/demons.” The negotiation was WIDE open, everything on the table. There were other choices. They chose to obliterate themselves. To give up everything for no real reason. And what sort of message is that?? Especially compared to the messages of the previous seasons.

The kiss discourse: I don’t believe romantic love needs kissing. I don’t believe romantic love needs physical expression of any kind. I don’t believe other types of love need physical expression or are less valid than romantic love. The only reason I wanted there to be a “proper” kiss is because they deserve a do-over to have a kiss that isn’t filled with pain and desperation and a hail mary. (And ok yes, I want an alternative for the fandom so they stop pointing at the s2 kiss as a romantic declaration of feelings when it is such a painful moment.)

Terry’s comment: I’ve been assuring people we wouldn’t get a tragic they-were-turned-human ending because of Terry’s comment that they had a cottage together in the South Downs. If S3 has the ending he meant, clearly I was missing vital information. And it feels like a betrayal. Because yes, there’s a cottage in the South Downs, and yes, two humans share it, but it’s not shared by Aziraphale and Crowley. It’s not even shared by humans who remember they were Aziraphale and Crowley in a past life.

And THAT’s why I’m heartbroken.

If you want to believe in the whole “every universe” thing, power to you. But I just…can’t. I’ll wait for the fix-it fics that completely rewrite S3, until I find one that sticks with the themes of the previous seasons AND gives an angel and demon (AND the human-filled world they love) the ending they deserve.

#good omens season 3 #good omens spoilers #good omens s3 #go season 3 #go s3 #go spoilers

0ldstoneface

Please don't delete your fics. Please don't delete your art. Please don't make this worse than it already is.

Please keep writing.

Please keep drawing.

Please keep creating and nurturing our community.

Don't let this be the end.

GNU Good Omens.

joycrispy

I'm seeing some confusion out and about over the title A Companion to Owls (generally along the lines of 'what have owls got to do with it???'), so I'd like to offer my interpretation (with a general disclaimer that the Bible and particularly the Old Testament are damn complicated and I'm not able to address every nuance in a fandom tumblr post, okay? Okay):

It's a phrase taken from the Book of Job. Here's the quote in full (King James version):

When I looked for good, then evil came unto me: and when I waited for light, there came darkness. My bowels boiled, and rested not: the days of affliction prevented me. I went mourning without the sun: I stood up, and I cried in the congregation. I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls. --(Job 30:29)

Job is describing the depths of his grief, but also, with that last line, his position in the web of providence.

Throughout the Old Testament, owls are a recurring symbol of spiritual devastation. Deuteronomy 4:17 - Isaiah 34:11 - Psalm 102: 3 - Jeremiah 50: 39...just to name a few (there's more). The general shape of the metaphor is this: owls are solitary, night-stalking creatures, that let out either mournful cries or terrible shrieks, that inhabit the desolate places of the world...and (this is important) they are unclean.

They represent a despair that is to be shunned, not pitied, because their condition is self-inflicted. You defied God (so the owl signifies), and your punishment is...separation. From God, from others, from the world itself. To call and call and never, ever receive an answer.

Your punishment is terrible, tormenting loneliness.

(and that exact phrase, "tormenting loneliness," doesn't come from me...I'm pulling it from actual debate/academia on this exact topic. The owls, and what they are an omen for. Oof.)

To call yourself a 'companion to owls,' then, is to count yourself alongside perhaps the most tragic of the damned --not the ones who defy God out of wickedness or ignorance, and in exile take up diabolical ends readily enough...but the ones who know enough to mourn what they have lost.

So, that's how the title relates to Job: directly. Of course, all that is just context. The titular "companion to owls," in this case, isn't Job at all.

Because this story is about Aziraphale.

The thing is that Job never actually defied God at all, but Aziraphale does, and he does so fully believing that he will fall.

He does so fully believing that he's giving in to a temptation.

He's wrong about that, but still...he's realized something terrifying. Which is that doing God's will and doing what's right are sometimes mutually exclusive. Even more terrifying: it turns out that, given the choice between the two...he chooses what's right.

And he's seemingly the only angel who does. He's seemingly the only angel who can even see what's wrong.

Fallen or not, that's the kind of knowledge that...separates you.

(Whoooo-eeeeee, tormenting loneliness!!!)

Aziraphale is the companion.

...I don't think I need to wax poetic about Aziraphale's loneliness and grappling with devotion --I think we all, like, get it, and other people have likely said it better anyway. So, one last thing before I stop rambling:

Check out Crowley's glasses.

(screenshots from @seedsofwinter)

Crowley is the owl.

Crowley is the goddamn owl.

shiftingwithmars

Fuck off🖕

werew0lfthing

Straight people will say that LGBT education isn't age appropriate but will put toddlers in clothes that talk about their genitals and not let kids as young as 5 be alone in a room together because they "might get up to something"

skullissue

Random theory, not a spoiler in itself, but it does require knowing the context of Chapter 128, so if you haven't read that or even Ch 127 yet you'd best read this later. . . .

Waaaaaait. Wait wait wait. Don't tell me. If Amane got his moon rock when he was four.....maybe it was on his birthday......maybe someone important gave it to him after, oh I dunno, seeing this memory. That would be...an amazingly well done full circle.

#toilet bound hanako kun #tbhk manga #toilet bound hanako kun spoilers #tbhk spoilers #tbhk chapter 128 #random theory time!!!!#just re-reading sections of the manga and this jumped out at me

littlecakeclub

Not Your Orientalist Fantasy: The Inner Palace in The Apothecary Diaries

Ok my Apothecary fam, this is gonna be a long post but a positive one, so bear with me :3

I’ve loved historical fiction since forever, especially when it’s not centered around Western/white history. But loving the genre comes with a lot of frustration too. Depending on who’s writing, when they’re writing, and how well they researched (or didn’t), it can easily fall into stereotyping or misinformation.

Recently, I read two historical novels set in empires that depicted versions of a harem:

📖 Alamut by Vladimir Bartol, set in medieval Iran, and

📖 The Architect’s Apprentice by Elif Shafak, in Ottoman Istanbul.

Both stories include spaces where women live together, sometimes as concubines, nobles, queens, wifes. Sometimes as political actors, sometimes just as plot devices. And both got me thinking: why did I hate those depictions, but love the inner palace in The Apothecary Diaries? Honestly, the way this story handles gendered spaces of power feels smarter, more complex, and more real than a lot of so-called “serious” historical novels.

⚠️ I'm manga + anime only (for now), and this is based on that part of the series (I’ve read up to ch. 80.2 and watched both seasons). Please do not spoil me in the discussions <3

Orientalism vs nuance — how fiction fails (and why this manga doesn’t)

"Harem" is a loaded term in the West. It’s shaped far more by the Western colonial imagination than by actual historical realities. Yes, polygynous systems existed in many empires : Rajput and Mughal India, Qing China, the Ottoman empire, Persia, Egypt, etc. The word harem once meant protection, intimacy, and even a form of soft power. But colonial narratives twisted it into a fantasy, full of sex, silence, and subjugation.

In Alamut, women are brainwashed playthings in a pleasure fortress. Drugs, alcohol, and softcore orgies make it feel like a colonial fever dream. This doesn't surprise me because Vladimir Bartol, the author of the novel, never went to Persia and everything he wrote was inspired by Marco Pollo's writing. Oh ! Another white traveler.

In The Architect’s Apprentice, things are less cartoonish, but still... uneasy. The harem remains this mysterious closed space, romanticized and framed through the male narrator’s gaze. Eventhough the author Elif Shafak, is turkish and a women, I feel that some of her writing does carry stereotypes. And honestly? Even when we’re part of the cultures being depicted, many of us still carry a Western gaze. That’s colonization. That’s the power of dominant narratives.

So I always feel tense when fiction tackles these gendered spaces — especially when it exoticizes women of color as either voiceless victims or sexualized enigmas. Queerness is often fetishized in these depictions too — as a kind of Orientalist fantasy layered over the women’s bodies.

But The Apothecary Diaries? It avoids all that. It doesn’t pretend these systems were fair or ideal. But it also doesn’t pretend they were empty cages.

The inner palace is a social world, not an orgie in disguise

What I love in Apothecary Diaries is that the inner palace isn’t just a backdrop for seduction.

It’s full of life, of power games, alliances, daily routines, and deeply human connections. You see friendships, rivalries, maternal bonds. You see court ladies trained in arts, etiquette, sometimes even politics. Gyokuyou helping Lihua when they are both pregnant. The bond between Lishu and Ah Duo, as a mother-daughter relationship. Maomao’s friendship with Xiaolan and Shisui. All of it builds a world where women are active agents, even in constrained roles.

So many stories rely on shock value when depicting women in these systems : rape, abuse, trauma. Not to say these things didn’t happen, but they’re so often presented in voyeuristic, almost titillating ways.

The Apothecary Diaries shows us something rarer: the real problems and emotional costs of those systems, without sensationalizing them.

The quiet pain of Gyokuyou, who knows she’ll never have the emperor to herself.

Fuyou, a princess who uses the inner palace as a hiding place, waiting for her beloved, and cleverly tricking the emperor into leaving her alone.

Lihua’s illness, shaped by the grief of losing her child.

These stories show us that suffering here isn’t always loud or dramatic. Sometimes it’s slow, soft, made of waiting and quiet resignation.

And yes, even the deeply disturbing behavior of the previous emperor is part of this reality. His pedophilia was known and frowned upon, yet tolerated, simply because he held ultimate power. No one could stop him. That’s part of the horror too.

The ecosystem of the inner palace and the lives of its women reflect the world outside: sorority, friendship, sisterhood, but also rivalry, violence, loneliness, and class divides.

It’s complex. And that’s exactly what makes it such a compelling story.

Women navigating patriarchy with intelligence and strategy

Yes, the system is patriarchal. Of course it is. The emperor decides, men rule. But within this system, women still find ways to carve out space — to survive, to strategize, sometimes even to thrive like Gyokuyou.

Some rely on wit, alliances, or sheer luck to stay afloat. Others, like Shenmei, actively choose this world, seeking honor, influence, and status, even when their heart lies elsewhere. They become part of the palace’s political machinery, navigating its codes and ambitions like anyone else trying to rise within empire.

And then there are those like Lishu, quietly protected — not because of their own agency, but because the palace, for all its rules, still offers more safety than the world beyond its walls.

And what I found particularly brilliant is how the series draws parallels between the inner palace and the pleasure quarters.

Both are systems where women are sexualized, yes. But both also offer women a kind of agency. The courtesans of the red light district, much like Indian tawaifs or Japanese geishas, are shown choosing who to marry, managing their careers, teaching the arts — even sexual education.

Remember when Maomao teaches a noblewoman about sex based on what she learned from the brothel? That’s cultural memory, feminine expertise, and class intersection all in one.

Class, gender, and masculinity deconstructed

I also love how the story explores declassed masculinities.

By that, I mean men who don’t sit at the top of the patriarchal hierarchy. They don’t hold full institutional power, nor do they always benefit from sexual or social dominance.

Take the eunuchs, for example. In a lot of Western fiction, eunuchs are mocked, caricatured, or reduced to tragic figures. But The Apothecary Diaries offers a much richer range of portrayals.

We have two doctors: one naïve and kind, Guen and, the other competent and respected, Luomen. There’s also Gaoshun, who has a family — something rare to see in fiction for an eunuch but historically accurate ! These characters are layered, each have different stories. Some are influential and respected. They represent a masculinity that exists outside the norm — marginalized, yes, but far from powerless.

Even Jinshi, with his complicated background, plays with gender expectations. He’s perceived as delicate, elegant, “too beautiful to be taken seriously” — which creates a tension between his apparent softness and his hidden political strength. He performs fragility to disarm people, while holding real authority.

Lihaku, on the other hand, is more of a traditional male figure but his tenderness, his devotion to Pailin, and his friendship with Maomao make him stand out. As a man from a lower class, he also faces barriers and prejudice. He doesn't coast on masculine privilege alone — he has to fight for space in this strategic, stratified society.

Even the current emperor isn’t reduced to a brutish patriarch who exploits women. He cares for Lishu, Gyokuyou, and Ah-Duo in different ways — as a father, a companion, a partner in trust. He’s witty, clever, emotionally attuned. But he too is trapped by his role. He has to marry for political reasons. We see this when he visits Lolan because her family is powerful — despite clearly having no physical interest in her and no admiration for her personality. It’s duty, not desire.

None of these men fit the traditional mold of patriarchal power.

And that’s what makes it so refreshing. The Apothecary Diaries doesn’t just explore how women survive under patriarchy. It also shows how men who don’t fit the dominant script navigate it too.

Some of this is clearly designed to appeal to modern audiences — no, this isn’t 100% historically accurate. But it still breaks many stereotypes about men in palace life with harems. They’re not just simping 25/7 for the women. They’re not defined solely by desire or power over the harem. They have their own lives, their own griefs, and their own constraints. And that’s rare to see.

When the Gaze Isn’t Male or White

Western historical dramas like Versailles, The Tudors, or The Crown are full of royal mistresses, political marriages, lovers used as pawns. And yet. We don’t exoticize Anne Boleyn the same way we exoticize, say, Hürrem Sultan or Nur Jahan.

The reason? Racism. We romanticize white women’s sexuality and political maneuvering, but frame women of color in imperial settings as either victims or temptresses. It’s tiring.

I honestly think this complexity in The Apothecary Diaries and how it breaks stereotypes, is one of the reasons the anime is so popular. It has layers. And one major reason is that the story is told through the eyes of a woman.

Maomao doesn’t romanticize or demonize the Inner Palace or the Pleasure District. She observes with curiosity, empathy, and sharp analysis. It brings in a rare kind of female gaze: one that sees both pain and resilience, both survival and ambition.

That’s the beauty of Maomao’s narration. It doesn’t flatten or moralize, it understands.

These types of point of view are essentials in fiction. Because how we tell history affects how we see each other. Because stories like The Apothecary Diaries offer us a view of the past that isn’t filtered through a white, Christian, male lens.

Because these systems were patriarchal — but they were also complex, dynamic, and full of real human lives. And fiction that gets that? Is precious.