So many people in the gomens fandom resonate with Crowley as a character--the black sheep, the scapegoat, the rebel with a kind soul beneath the sarcastic exterior--and i TOTALLY get that. But I'd love to connect with some people that are more Aziraphale-adjacent.
It is so weird trying to navigate this world as a far-left-wing Roman Catholic. I have so much love and respect for my faith and its rituals and traditions. I am not ready or willing to let those things go, that give so much beauty and meaning to my life.
BUT. My relationship to my church is very much "it's complicated." I believe in the dignity and sanctity of gay and bi and pan and Trans and nonbinary and gender queer and (my fellow) ace-spec people and I will not compromise that stance. I want to be a "good catholic" and yet I believe that involves a certain amount of civil disobedience, like that's what Jesus is truly asking of me.
The Great Plan (obedience to authority) isn't necessarily in alignment with the Ineffable Plan (the compassion and love that God *actually* demands of us). I believe the True God is more all-encompassing, imaginative, and mysterious than any human can comprehend, and we limit God by forcing Them into a small box of orthodoxy.
THAT is why Aziraphale is my comfort character and I will defend him to my last breath. Can he be a hypocrite? Selfish, hedonistic, engaging in cognitive dissonance??? Absolutely. Do I get him on a fundamental level?? 1000% he is trying to walk an impossibly thin line and you can pry him from my cold, dead hands.
It would be so much "easier" if he could walk away from heaven without regret or guilt, sure. But it would alter his identity entirely into a different person and I understand why he can't (doesn't) and I don't think he needs to change his entire personality any more than I expect Crowley to become an angel again (I don't and he shouldn't have to). These two concepts can coexist and they should be able to find a balance together anyway. That's my hope, anyway.
