"The Rexes are incredibly affectionate pack animals, so we were careful to breed multiples. Be sure to come during spring time to watch them go broody over anything even vaguely egg-shaped."
"We put the Raptors through target training and now if they are bored, hungry, or just want a scratch under the chin they go to spot near the bars and ring a little bell for attention."
"Imprinting after hatching was so common that we now have keepers under contract to care for the animals well into adulthood to prevent them from pining."
"The Gallimimus turned out to be just giant Canada Geese, and so fear nothing. Their keeper regularly has to stop them from trying to attack fences, guests, feeding buckets, and the now traumatised pack of Ceratosaurs in the next paddock."
Yeah I got to say that watching zoo reality shows on animal planet has made it clear that Jurassic park doesn't go wrong because Chaos and nature can't be contained by man but because they hired exactly zero experienced zoo keepers
[id: a tweet by star wars queers watch @\queerswatch 11 hours ago with 7 replies, 84 retweets, and 350 likes, reading "ladies and gentlebeings, i'm proud to present: the first lightsaber battle between two canonically queer combatants." there is an image of the battle between the ronin and kouru in star wars visions. end id]
you've heard of wlw/mlm solidarity now get ready for wlw/mlm hostility
“intergenerational lgbt discourse but with lightsabers” don’t hide this in the tags @jester-mereel im CHOKING laughing
kouru really said i am gay and im gonna kill a boomer and the ronin was like “valid, we DID ruin the world”
ekiya is like “i am not a force user but i do have the power of god and anime on my side and these fucking boomers better not mess up my fucking car just like they ruined my entire generation”
fox is very peak “gay person forced to go home and interact with loving but cringingly neoliberal family”
yuehiro meets the ronin and definitely has zoomer/boomer dynamic of “im trans and more powerful than you” and the ronin is like u know what thats valid
#THIS IS MY FAVORITE FUCKING THING JUST THE BEEF#YOU COULD TELL THE POOR CHEF WAS JUST FUCKING#DISGUSTED#WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS#WHAT THE F U C K IS THIS#WHO THE FUCK ORDERS A#A /NONE/ PIZZA?? JUST BEEF ON THE LEFT???#FUCK IT#F U CK IT#JUST COOK THE FUCKING DOUGH#HERE LET ME THROW THIS FUCKING HANDFUL OF OBLONG BEEF CHUNKS AT YOUR NONE FUCKING PIZZA#FUCK YOU#FUCK YOU AND ALL YOU STAND FOR#LEFT FUCKING BEEF (via askscientistcarlos)
As much debate as there is about tone tags, 90% of the issues would be solved by just typing the word. Like instead of typing /gen or /hj you can just write (genuine) or (handjob) and you'll be doing pretty much the exact same thing.
Of course I personally think it's less awkward to use some rudimentary language skills to form actual sentences and phrases. They don't even have to be complicated. Like "Genuine question, why are you doing that?" Or "I'm being serious. Stop that." Or "I'm going to jerk you off now."
I whole wholeheartedly agree with you on this matter OP. I do feel like it's often forgotten in this discourse that tonetags originated on Twitter where they had to get around a constrictive character count for tweets. I think how we got here makes a lot more sense when you consider the process otherwise of trying to fit an entire handjob in 280 characters.
I wonder how much the problems many of us are noting with Good Omens 3 are down to being based on scripts by someone who's a living example of human evil, without being primarily the vision of actual-optimist-about-humanity Terry Pratchett like the Good Omens book, and then having those scripts distilled and adapted by Peter Atkins (most known for Hellraiser stuff) and Michael Marshall Smith (8 pre-Good Omens writing credits). Imagine how different it might've been if they'd hired back any of the minisode writers: John Finnemore ("A Companion to Owls"), Cat Clarke ("The Resurrectionists"), and Jeremy Dyson ("Nazi Zombie Flesheaters"). The minisodes all showed they could've done Heaven vs. Hell vs. humanity and romance and comedy.
I dislike that ending so much that I'm actually going to go re-read my own alternative season 3 fic. Here are some things that do NOT happen in MY ending:
God does not fucking ship Aziraphale and Crowley
Every character we've ever met does not get disintegrated out of existence
Aziraphale and Crowley do not die
Aziraphale and Crowley do not become fucking humans
Aziraphale and Crowley do not become fucking random humans who basically like stars and books and have nothing else in common with their original characters except face shape
Here are some things that do happen
Everyone who deserves it gets a happy ending
The problem of even is PROPERLY addressed
The apocalypse is resolved satisfactorily
The Book of Life features in an actually interesting way
The characters we met and invested in in season 2 do not randomly disappear from the narrative.
Anyway I could continue ranting but instead here's my fic.
What Are You Doing Here? (65K words, rated E) - post s2 - The Second Coming is ON, and Aziraphale and Crowley attempt to save the world with limited effectiveness
Some thoughts on why Good Omens S3 felt so disappointing from a queer theory perspective; major spoilers below the cut:
I wanted to organize my many scattered thoughts after watching the new season today, and try to put my finger on just what made the finale so disappointing as a queer story.
I find Aziraphale and Crowley to be queer in four major ways:
1. Most obviously, they are both male-presenting beings in love with each other.
2. They are magical/incorporeal beings that canonically lack human gender.
3. They actively work to counter the dominant systems in control of their lives to forge their own way forward (especially Crowley).
4. Their story spans countless times and places, weaving through different eras of history and prehistory and defying linear time.
In order to explain points 3 and 4, I'm going to perform the classic trick of pulling out Jose Esteban Muñoz’s Cruising Utopia. Part of Cruising Utopia examines the concept of queer time, which Muñoz characterizes as a time that is never fully arrived at due to its constant diversion from the status quo (which, of course, changes throughout time, rendering the queer experience ever-striving). Queer time is a continual process with no possible end, but one that is nonetheless carried out with hope and care despite its impossibility. It dovetails neatly with the philosophy of positive absurdism where, despite the chaos and cruelty of a random universe, the best thing to do is live anyway with all the love and kindness you can. This is a theme that is incredibly prevalent in Terry Pratchett’s parts of the Good Omens book, specifically the storyline of Adam coming into his powers as the Antichrist.
Adam is constantly cajoled by a thrum of deep voices goading him to start the world afresh. The world is rotten and falling apart, they tell him. The only thing to do is destroy it all and rebuild it in your own image. It’s a selfish outlook, and one that is incredibly easy to fall into as humans with limited time on Earth. There’s no shame in having this outlook as far as Heaven and Hell are concerned. But Adam resists with Aziraphale and Crowley’s help, insisting that the connections he has with his friends and family and the inherent messiness and complexity of humanity is precisely why the world should remain the way it is. It’s a really beautiful sentiment (and a very Pratchett one). If we all gave in to apathy about changing the world and loving those around us, then we wouldn’t be living much of a life at all. In encouraging Adam to make his own human choices, regardless of what Heaven and Hell (the status quo) want, Aziraphale and Crowley demonstrate a queer ethos and an alignment with queer time. They may never see humanity fully at peace, but they can do their best to shepherd them on that quest.
When God gives them the “choice” to remake the world in S3, it doesn’t feel like much of a choice at all. Throughout the book and the previous two seasons, Heaven and Hell are depicted as overstuffed, underperforming bureaucracies who often aren’t aware of their own goals due to the indecipherable power structures. All they seem to be concerned with is sticking it to The Enemy. There are some occasional scenes where they are seen punishing humanity, but never on a scale strong enough to show that they’re actually good at their job of policing human morality (and it’s almost always to prove their cruelty to each other, like when the story of Job ends up being a bet between the two organizations to see who’s truly the best. Humans are just collateral in this eternal beef). When Aziraphale and Crowley opt to “remake” the world without Heaven and Hell dictating human actions, it feels like a fool’s errand. Heaven and Hell were never effective in policing humanity previously, and so it doesn’t change much when they are erased at the end of S3.
Additionally, by doing this, Aziraphale and Crowley abandon their pursuit of queer time, no longer fighting against the status quo and essentially giving themselves up as sacrificial lambs. It’s admirable that they’re willing to be on each other’s side so much that they will cease to exist, but it also means that their millennia-long pursuit of shepherding and loving humanity comes to an end. It’s a really hard pill to swallow for me, personally, and I feel like I can’t pass informed judgement on it with how short the scene was and with how out of character they both acted. (It’s extra heartbreaking to have them decide to do this under an apple tree and then never delve into the significance of that.)
The issue of there being no kiss is a really nuanced one. As someone on both the aro and ace spectrums, I’m all for different expressions and explorations of what love can be. Aziraphale and Crowley are really interesting characters for this since they aren’t human, and have been confirmed to be asexual/sexless beings. I enjoyed the novelty of the finger kiss, especially since Aziraphale has so many Victorian dandy-esque tendencies that could understandably lend themselves to such a gesture of affection. However, it felt incredibly flat and narratively unfulfilling for a few reasons.
Firstly, while there was potential for exploration of how an angel and demon might show their affection for each other in contrast to two humans, that was sadly never shown. Their love story was intentionally paralleled with a human one (Nina and Maggie in S2), so there was every reason to expect that they would mimic human social customs after living among them for so long.
Secondly, it perfectly encapsulates a major issue I have with the finale, which is that it is clearly a well-meaning story made by allies, but one that lacks any true queer substance. The finger kiss and hand holding happened without Aziraphale ever apologizing for his patronizing attitude towards Crowley and without him ever explicitly telling Crowley that he loved him. God states that They were always amused by Aziraphale’s love for Crowley ever since the Beginning. Aziraphale states that with Crowley, he was complete, but that that was taken away from him after Crowley’s Fall. All of this dialogue is clearly meant to be unassailable proof of their love for each other, especially when combined with the millennia of acts of service for each other. However, it doesn’t actually delve into the heart of their love, and fails to give it proper substance. The screenplay is content to let the audience know that Aziraphale and Crowley love each other without actually showing us a moment where the two explicitly verbally confirm it. Again, this could be interesting if the angle of a queer connection outside of human customs was explored, but since that isn’t delved into, the confirmation of their love ends up feeling rushed and unsure (and it never comes straight from their own mouths, which feels incredibly disappointing). It’s yet another instance of an issue that has cropped up in recent years now that queer media is more mainstream, which I like to call Being Gay Is Fine As Long As You Don’t Do Any of That Kissing Stuff.
Rachel Talalay, the director of this season, said in an interview that she, Michael Sheen, and David Tennant felt that showing another mouth-to-mouth kiss would have “the same or less” impact as the one in the S2 finale. Complete mismatch of stakes aside, this quote shows a fundamental misinterpretation of how to depict queer intimacy. Talalay says in the same interview that “they [the fandom] desperately want [a kiss], and they can write their whole sex scenes in fanfic.” In doing so, she equates showing a queer kiss or makeout scene with sexual activity, and subconsciously reveals that she feels that such queer intimacy is too “on the nose.” This feels to me like a clear watering down of queer desire in the service of what allies feel to be “more meaningful” — aka These People Really Love Each Other (We Promise!) But Not Enough To Kiss Onscreen (Don’t Be Ridiculous). It’s a sort of unintentional infantilization and refusal to let queer couples stand on common ground with straight ones. (You never hear this kind of thing being said about cishetero couples.) This stings even more because she, Sheen, and Tennant are demonstrably great allies to the queer community, but this interview shows the fundamental disconnect between well-meaning allyship and true, firsthand queer experience (what’s that Crowley said about the road to Hell?). I’m in no way saying that anyone on this show had malicious intent, but the subtext of the season and cast/crew interviews is still very telling of the storytellers’ biases.
This is carried even further by choosing to reincarnate Aziraphale and Crowley as humans. In gaining corporeal, human forms, the queer significance of their nonbinary, magical forms is stolen away from them. The millennia of queer time they spent arguing and questioning and striving and laughing together is erased, and they are sentenced to a few linear decades of marriage, looking feebly up at stars they once created. I won’t lie and say that it wasn’t touching to see an older gay couple have a meet-cute resulting in marriage onscreen. It’s true that there’s a beauty in the fact that they’ll find each other in every universe — but we only see two of those universes, and they won’t get to live in the one they helped create and cherish together. If that’s the case, then what’s the point? (And fuck that nightingale!!)
If you got this far, thank you so much for reading! I definitely have many more thoughts about the finale, but those are all the ones that pertain to specifically queer theory and queer themes throughout the show. I’d love to hear what others have to say, whether you agree with my points or not! (But of course please be civil. I don’t pretend to speak for every queer person. Variety is what makes us so beautiful after all!) I’m really bummed that this is how the show ended after years of waiting, but it does provide interesting insight into how queerness is portrayed in pop culture and viewed by society at large, for better or for worse.
This is an EXCELLENT analysis. Especially the point about allyship vs actual queer experience. I got so infuriated by that interview with Talalay and you've hit the nail right on the head of why that was so frustrating - not only does it demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of the kiss in s2, imo, and of what a romantic story requires in pay off terms (any romance that has a 3rd act break up with an angry kiss absolutely needs a loving kiss to provide proper catharsis/resolution to the audience, just speaking purely in narrative/genre terms), it also seems to say that fans are perverts for wanting to see these characters kiss. And I didn't think of it myself so very much appreciate your point that it basically falls into the trap of seeing an expression of love that is very much an accepted mainstream part of het couples becomes seen as inherently sexualised when it is queer.
And whilst I can see the IDEA of it being beautiful that they find each other in every universe, one of my biggest problems is that this wasn't THEM, it was two people who vaguely looked like them and share one or two common interests. Their personalities, memories, experiences all gone, turning them into inherently different people. And yes, nice to see some older gay men who look sort of like characters I loved get together, but it had none of the resonance that the creators clearly intended.
And fundamentally, their failure to outright proclaim their love for each other, to articulate and make undeniable that they LOVED each other, and to address the ways in which they had previously let each other down/rejected each other/failed to understand each other - was just an absolute slap in the face.
Thanks very much for sharing that interesting analysis (and I've never heard of the queer time concept, will have to go explore that further!)
We got a lot of delicious, beautiful scenes with Aziraphale and Crowley, as I had hoped for. What we didn't get was basically anything with humans that glorifies their ability to make their own choices. We had humans in the gambling plotline, and we had a few wandering Soho whom Jesus interacted with, and that was it. At a stretch, we got to see Jesus' kindness to others, but that didn't have any long-term effects on anyone he interacted with. No human got to make a choice that mattered, the way the Them did at the airbase, or the way Anathema chose not to be a professional descendent anymore. Instead, Michael went rogue and destroyed everyone, and Aziraphale and Crowley faced down God and Satan to give them a second chance. It's all decided by nonhumans, in the end. Where are the human choices that matter and are worth preserving?
The runtime and budget certainly wouldn't allow for entirely fulfilling the 36-year-old vision of "For my money, the really big one will be all of Us against all of Them." / "What? You mean Heaven and Hell against humanity?" / "Of course, if he did change everything, then maybe he changed himself, too. Got rid of his powers, perhaps. Decided to stay human." Or Adam Young, "a figure, half angel, half devil, all human … Slouching hopefully towards Tadfield. … forever." Ending with they're-all-human-now, no Heaven and Hell, is probably intended to celebrate or fulfill something of Terry Prachett's wishes and his humanism. But it really didn't land that way.
Doing "humanity wins!" as four beings, none of them human, having a conversation in a bookshop and deciding what to do about humanity doesn't compare to the theme that could've been carried forward of humans making human choices about their own lives and having an angel and a demon side with humanity but ultimately witnessing humans come into their own instead of determining what happens. (Free will, remember?) And having one archangel destroy everything first, and the decision of what to do about it isn't restoration but instead accepting that all but a tiny pocket of the entire universe was destroyed, and starting a fresh new one with new rules... like the Great Flood on a universal scale? Not a single human choice deciding what becomes of humanity? Doesn't feel Pratchett.
Basically, whatever the specifics of what he had in mind for plot beats, his no-longer-existing-on-this-plane-of-reality means we don't have his words and plot and execution. We know of some individual details once envisioned in collaboration, like the South Downs cottage, because That Fucker shared them, but how would Terry Pratchett have gotten us there? I'll bet* humans would've actually mattered.
Maybe a fixit to the bye-bye Bentley and bookshop, hello ONE human lifetime, could be repeatedly reincarnating as humans and loving each other over and over (♫ time after time ♫), and returning to their original selves in-between incarnations in the other dimensional bookshop (kinda like L-space?).
Got a lot of empty books to write their original story into, and maybe a bunch of others.
