Hello everyone. Dutch is now 6 months old and in desparate need of help. He got into some ibuprofen on Thursday, and after vet visits and blood test the past couple days, his kidneys are now showing signs of distress. He is hospitalized with our vet, but I need help to afford the rest of the bills. Please anything you can do: share, donate, or support... I would appreciate it greatly.
Hes my best friend and I can't imagine being without him. Thank you in advance for all the love. Here is the link for his GoFundMe:
Hello, my name is Cheyanne. Dutch is my service dog in training. He ingested ibuprofen and… Cheyanne Smith needs your support for Dutch'
thinking about Good Omens 2. and stories, and the shape of them, and Terry Pratchett and his themes. and something clicked.
Aziraphale is cackling.
it's not just the ball. he spends the entire season trying to force the story into a shape it's not, and everyone suffers for it.
i've seen some less than charitable takes on Crowley's actions and they all ignore how much Crowley did try to talk to Aziraphale, did try to ask Aziraphale questions, did try to help, only to be ignored or brushed off. because his questions, his offers, they didn’t fit with the story Aziraphale was telling himself.
quiet, gentle, and romantic. it was, if you're our favorite Angel - right up until the end, at least. because he decided that's the story he was in. from the very beginning, he's off in la-la land, living out this romcom with a cute little mystery wrapped up in it, completely ignoring what's actually going on around him. i'll set Nina and Maggie up! (completely ignoring that Nina tells him she has a partner, and at that point, he has no reason to think she's anything less than happy.) i'll take ~our~ car to go do investigate this silly little mystery (he's not taking it even a little bit seriously!) while you stay here and run the bookshop and it will be so quaint and domestic! soon we'll dance and confess our feelings that we obviously share because we're already so clearly a couple we just need to finally say it!
Crowley knows the entire time that they're in a horror story but Aziraphale ignores every attempt he makes to point that out because it doesn't fit the story he decided he's in the middle of.
he brushes off Crowley's concerns and questions - his QUESTIONS! - like they're nothing. he doesn't want to see it, so he doesn't. and Crowley should have told him more?
why would he?
when you are CLEARLY in distress and it's being BLATANTLY AND WILLFULLY IGNORED, what the fuck are you supposed to do? "Crowley didn't comminicate" well okay if I were having a panic attack about something and my husband completely ignored it, chattering on about our dinner plans or whatever, that wouldn’t exactly make me want to open up about what was wrong! that would send the very fucking clear signal that he didn't want to know!
words aren't the only way we communicate and Crowley's body language, the entire season, is that of someone who is living in a horror story, knows he's living in a horror story, and is fucking terrified. if Aziraphale were paying any attention to Crowley instead of focusing all his energy trying to set things up just so for the big climax of his love story, he would know something major was wrong.
why would Crowley have told him how cruel Gabriel was about the execution when Aziraphale's already so thoroughly convinced that heaven is pure and good and has shown over and over through the millennia that he's not really open to considering that it can be cruel!
just look at them at the dance. Crowley freaking out because there's a horde of demons out there and Aziraphale giggling as they go to dance. that's the whole season!
you know who Crowley reminds me of this season?
he's watching helplessly and with increasing levels of distress as Aziraphale shoves every plot point into the romcom hole even though it's obviously not remotely romcom shaped! and i'm sick of people saying he was abusive because he raises his voice about it a few times!
mr gaiman, was crowley goth in the 80s? i believe he would love the cure, bauhaus and echo and the bunnyman. and also england was the start of this subculture. so was he goth back in the 80s?
Two more weeks till he comes home! He's going to do so well in the showring! His temperament as of this moment is nothing but perfect for service work. I hope he's able to fill Zeike's shoes and become the perfect service dog for me
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”.
their argument over Gabriel and how they "resolved" it set up the Final Fifteen of ep6 and is a microcosm of their relationship issues
The fight between Aziraphale and Crowley about Gabriel goes like this:
Aziraphale believes that it's Safest for them to deal with the gabriel situation by being involved and solving it together.
Crowley believes that it's Safest for them to get as far away from the Gabriel situation as possible, either by removing gabriel from them or themselves from him.
Aziraphale also believes that it's Right to help Gabriel, because Aziraphale believes in the innate goodness of everyone and everything.
Crowley believes that it's Right to not help Gabriel or frankly to care about him at all, because Gabriel hurt Aziraphale repeatedly over millennia and then tried to destroy him.
They approach this issue with such a difference in their core beliefs and values that they have to disagree, it's inevitable. And that would be fine. Except that the way they resolve this argument is utter bullshit.
First off, Aziraphale responds to Crowley with an ultimatum: do it my way or leave. (Which, hello, trauma from being cast out of heaven? Wtf Aziraphale. )
Crowley responds by telling Aziraphale he'll have to do this alone, and then predictably leaving.
Crowley only changes his mind and returns because he learns that Aziraphale is in real existential peril. Then they do a series of Things, none of which actually revolve their big disagreement.
Crowley offers a sort-of apology ("can we take it as stated?") but doesn't say what he's apologizing for. He doesn't tell Aziraphale what he thinks he got wrong (spoiler: because he absolutely doesn't think he Was wrong, and his belief is reinforced by the threat of destruction hanging over Aziraphale's head). It's "I'm sorry for whatever I said, get in the car" all over again.
Aziraphale doesn't even apologize lmao, and why should he? He must be right, because Crowley's back! And Crowley's doing their ritualistic "apology" dance that they use in place of actual fucking conversation. So Aziraphale doesnt need to acknowledge anything about his line of reasoning or his belief system, they can just carry on.
Especially because, crucially, Aziraphale doesn't know that Crowley was actually right! And helping Gabriel will put them both in extreme danger! And he doesn't know this, because Crowley didn't tell him!
Crowley didnt tell Aziraphale about the Book of Life punishment because he believes Aziraphale is Safest not worrying about that, and that it's Right for him to protect Aziraphale from that hurtful, harmful knowledge.
They literally do. not. discuss this issue ever again. They have no idea, or none that we're textually shown anyway, why the other reacted the way they did to Gabriel. They simply move forward with the problem, without even an iota of enlightenment about each other's points of view. They think they already know each other perfectly, right? They've been talking for millions of years, Crowley loves rescuing Aziraphale, etc.
So then we get to ep6. And it's really the same fundamental disagreement:
Aziraphale believes they will be Safest with their hands in the game.
Aziraphale believes it's Right to force Heaven, through what he has been manipulated into thinking is his new authority, to do Good (actual moral good, like he and Crowley do).
Crowley believes it's Safest for them both to stay as far away from the machinations of heaven, and by extension hell, as possible.
Crowley believes it's Right for him to reject Heaven as they once rejected him, to reject their whole dichotomous system in fact. He believes it's Right for Aziraphale to reject Heaven too, because Heaven tried to destroy Aziraphale.
And once again, Crowley doesn't tell Aziraphale of the danger they're in - Armageddon the Sequel, plus Archangels being demoted and having their memory wiped.
They still do not and cannot understand one another's motives and beliefs here. Because they have never had this freedom of choice before these last few years, and in that time they have never talked about this openly. Weirdly, Gabriel's arrival gave them a chance to hash all this out. In another world, maybe they knew exactly what the other wanted, and could therefore choose each other at this critical juncture.
But that's not what happened.
(cue my "the irony of the serpent of Eden protecting someone he loves from knowledge" tag).
Edit to say, I have Thoughts about Why they communicate like this, which I'm trying to gather for another post.
