Kings and vagabonds

She/her || Finnish || 30+ years old || Supernatural || Good Omens || Merlin || Doctor Who || The Lord of the Rings || Welcome to Night Vale || Disney || Hannibal || Lover of books and chocolate || Writer || Fandom for life || Tossukka on AO3

[shaggydogstail]

Not being nice

I'm cool with ppl defending GO3 by talking about what they liked or disagreeing with criticisms. I even agree with some points, and if I don't, no biggie. Different opinions won't kill me.

What I can't stick is the it's a bad idea to say that, or they're married what more do you want, or even you're damaging the fandom stuff, and not just because I don't like being told to shut up. These arguments come from the same place as what I hated about the end of GO3.

When Crowley said just be an us it's not just be a couple it also means be ourselves. They weren't together because they weren't free. For Aziraphale and Crowley, just like irl queer people, the freedom to be with the person they love is intrinsically linked to the freedom to be their authentic selves. Who we love is part of who we are.

The Finale gave us a remix of Crowley and Aziraphale who got to be together only when they gave up being themselves. Asa and Anthony are literally pale imitations. Turning a supernatural entity into a human can be a celebration of ordinariness, of humanity (Michael getting a human life the Good Place was a TREAT) but GO3 goes out of its way to make AU Crowley and Aziraphale lesser. Alt!Crowley could've been an artist, or an engineer, or a gardener but that wouldn't have demoted him from starmaker to stargazer. Why demote Aziraphale from bookshop owner to shop assistant other that to take him down a peg or two?

It feels pointed, a put down. No happiness while you're loud, and vibrant, powerful, and defiant. Be smaller, be quieter, be lesser, know your place and you might be allowed a happy ending. Behave.

And whatever the politics of the people saying it, the voices telling us to be grateful so see a married queer couple, to not complain, being annoyed at us for wanting more are giving me the same vibe. It's respectability politics, no kink at pride, assimilate, don't be angry or shrill or weird and don't be ungrateful.

Fuck that. I do think my favourite characters deserved me. I think we deserve more. I'm not grateful and I don't see why I should pretend I am to be nice.

[just-shower-thoughts]

Blind people must save a lot on electricity.

[cynopansy]

They do actually!

[mauve-moth]

I had a blind professor, last semester, and I swung through his office to make up an exam. It was a while before I knew he was in there because he was sitting with the lights off. I finally went in, apologized, and took the exam by the light of a nearby window (which was fine). Forty-five minutes into dead silence he panicked and yelled in this booming voiced, “WAIT, YOU CAN SEE!!!” before diving across his desk to turn on the lights. I’m sure he was embarrassed but I thought it was endearing and it highlighted a large aspect of disabled life that I hadn’t previously considered.

[hotmolasses]

Sort of relatedly I once had professor who was deaf, but she had learned to read lips and speak so she could communicate easily with hearing people who didn’t know sign language. One day she had gotten off topic and was talking a little about her personal life, so that one of the students said “Oh, I know, I grew up in Brooklyn too.” 

She stared at him for a long time and then said “How do you know I’m from Brooklyn?”

And he said “You have a Brooklyn accent.”

She said “I do?” and the whole class nodded, and then she burst out laughing and said “I had no idea!  The school where I learned to speak was in Brooklyn.  I learned by moving my mouth and tongue the way my teachers did.  So I guess it makes sense that I have their accent, I just never thought about it.”

[wrote-my-own-deliverance]

My moms a sign language interpreter, and she’s signed with people from all over the US. According to her, when she signs with people from the south they sign with a “drawl.” They have slower hand movements and exaggerate certain parts of the sign. People from the Midwest sign very fast and people from the south sign very slow.

So we were at a restaurant once and my mom started interpreting for someone who was trying to order and she was like “oh you’re from the south!”

And they were like “how did you know that?”

And she said “you sign with a drawl.” And they were really surprised that it came through that much.

It’s really interesting that even when not speaking verbally accents and heritage come through.

[urbanfantasyinspiration]

Humans are so fucking fascinating

[spiralling-spires]

I love linguistic stuff and saw this post screenshotted AGES ago and have been halfheartedly searching for it again because no one believes me when i say sign language has accents AND I FOUND IT

[spiralling-spires]

FOUND THE POST AGAIN I WAS TALKING ABOUT IT LAST WEEK N COULDNT FIND IT AND THEN SOMEONE LIKED IT AND I SAW THE NOTIF WOOT

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

[overthinkingao3]

We write for ourselves, but we post for others.

(this came out of a conversation in the comments on a previous post about an author threatening to stop updating a fic because of lack of engagement)

So there’s this idea that fic writers should write for themselves and not care too much about stats or engagement,

and i totally get the sentiment behind that. if writing becomes entirely about stats and external validation, something important does get lost - creative freedom and joy, conviction in your own writing

but i also think:

“i write for myself, but i post for others.”

because posting fic is not only self-expression. it’s social. ao3 is called an archive, but emotionally it often functions as a community space.

people post for connection, for participation, for others to bear witness to their pain and trauma and grief,

and i don’t think most people are asking to be admired so much as acknowledged. there’s something deeply human about wanting another person to encounter something that mattered to you and go:

“ok, yeah, I see what you were trying to say. I see you.”

especially because fanfic is often people processing very real feelings through fictional characters at a safe distance, one step removed,

and then uploading that deeply personal thing into a shared archive and hoping somebody else might connect with it.

And i think that’s why it hurts so much when you summon up the courage and post a fic into the void and you get nothing back,

and then it’s like,

does anyone see me? does anyone even care?

[curiouspupsicle]

Yup! Exactly.

[spectrallydistracted]

Wonderfully written. Thank you.

[vivi-theakuneko]

If Aziraphale doesn't sleep, I like to think that sometimes he is stuck in bed for days as Crowley snore away. He's just staring at the ceiling, considering his life choices lol.

Like when you have a cat on your lap and you don't want to wake it up.

Bonus:

[the-oxrib-and-oyster]

You Go Too Fast For Me: Stop Telling Me To Chill Out About GO3.

cw: suicide

You know, Good Omens was an umbrella. It was a safe gathering space, a shelter and a haven for queer and traumatized and outcast folk for more than 30 years. Some of us are survivors of unspeakable horrors, and having to watch our comfort characters suicide onscreen with absolutely no warning, no toll free numbers and no consideration-- after a heavy barrage of seemingly intentional catfishing and misleading-to-outright-false advertisement from literally everyone involved in advance-- was simply devastating.

Coming up against smug, rude bullying, disdain and hate from long-beloved peers inside my own fandom for reacting emotionally to a trauma and continuing to struggle to reconcile the finale has been... fucking ass. Some of you are so nasty, so damn cruel. I'm thrilled it's just a show for you; my inbox is full of people who are having to go/back on psychiatric medications, triple booking therapy they can't afford, enduring fresh bouts of intrusive thoughts, suicidal ideation, and self-harm. Several people I know vomited at the end of go3 and were unable to keep food down for days after. I cannot say it strongly enough. It was a savagely cruel thing to endure for many, including those who have experienced loss of loved ones from suicide, for example, like myself.

These fresh-- and old, retraumatized-- wounds require airing out, at a minimum. And sometimes that's uncomfortable for those around us, I know. But for Christ's sake, could you take a swing at a little empathy for us? Block the tags and let us grieve. We have been brutalized newly in a place we believed we were safe, where we had been actively promised and previously shown we were safe-- a place we trusted.

I'm sorry our agony isn't moving along fast enough for you. Personally, I have had three years of intensive healing torn out of me, and have thirty years of wasted love for my ineffables to grieve.

So, if you all don't mind, I'm going to be a goddamned minute.

[aydracz]

I am one of those people who couldn't eat for about a week after the finale.

A week. I was just drinking milk because that was the only thing I could hold in.

I have a job, two side businesses, friends and family. I lived my life happily. I don't consider myself to be particularly fragile. I already lost some loved ones and dealt with it in quite a mature way.

But then this thing happened and no one could have prepared for that. No one.

I sincerely don't care at this point, if we are "casting a cloud over someone's joy with our negativity".

The result for you is just... less joy.

We, in the meantime, are in the fucking trenches, trying to put ourselves back together. We are grieving, we are at a funeral that none of us could have prepared for and you are telling us "but it's so beautiful, you're just stupid you cannot see it".

Our situations are NOT the same.

[purpie-goddess]

"In every universe" EXCEPT THE ONE THAT MATTERED

[mumintr0llet]

Missing the Real them 💔

[chaosandcardigans]

do you think we're together in another universe?

I don't care, I just want you in this one.

[beholdingslut]

in absolute tears about the pride module at my work

[dikdikpronouncedxylophone]

[bigfoots-biggest-fan]

HOLY SHIT GUYS, I WAS INSPIRED BY THIS POST TO TRY MAKE THE SONG AND YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE THE SCREAM I SCRUMPT WHEN I DRAGGED THE TRAINING AUDIO OVER THE BACKING TRACK AND IT LINED UP PERFECTLY

Visit Original Link

Tempted to actually put this on spotify so I can secretly stream it at work...

Tagging @batshit-auspol because as an Australian you're the only big account I know who might share (sorry).

[punkrorschach]

happy first day of pride everyone

[dailynarnia]

is jake gyllenhaal gay??

why would you ask us, a narnia blog, this

[helloitsbees]

happy pride month to this post specifically

[bon-bonsai]

Happy pride month to everyone! and to my fav genderfluid, agender; demon and angel.

[depraveddame]

The finale Aziraphale was not our Aziraphale.

I keep thinking about how Aziraphale, when Crowley did not immediately leap to his feet to help him, just turned around and walked away.

He didn’t try to help him up. He didn’t crouch down to his level. He didn’t even look remotely pressed, and he left Crowley lying there, depressed and dirty and drunk and barely conscious, like he was a piece of trash. Like he meant nothing. (I also haaaaate what they did with Crowley here, but that’s another post entirely)

To think they made Aziraphale into the villain so many people thought he was post s2, and for what? To what end? For what reason? It feels so unnecessarily cruel. So callous. So very much not Aziraphale.

“But Crowley told him to go away! Aziraphale was just respecting his boundaries!”

Nah. No. I mean maybe if Crowley was just chilling having a drink somewhere all upright and not covered in shit and mired in despair, then fine. But he’s lying on the fucking street in the alley muttering that nothing matters anymore. I would argue that when someone you care about is THAT depressed and THAT deep in a dark, dark place, that is precisely the time to ignore their attempt to shove you away. At the very least you reach out to them, anyway.

Was that angel the same as this one? This soft but fiercely tenderhearted sweetheart?

Are we supposed to believe this was that same angel we watched walk away from the same demon he guided through that Edinburgh cemetery with firm but careful hands before he was snatched down to Hell?

Out of all the possible things that could’ve happened in the finale— of all the possible endings and scenarios I thought about for months and months— one thing I never even considered to be remotely possible about this angel who always looked at Crowley like he was everything?

I never thought that Aziraphale wouldn’t help Crowley up off the ground.

And apparently, neither did Peter Anderson Studio.

Why that scene didn’t happen this way in the actual film, I’ll never understand. I’ll never understand pretty much any of the finale because it is so fucking nonsensical in every way, but they butchered the characterization so badly it’s almost impressive. It’s sickening. I have been trying to write a version of this scene that fits with the characters but the words won’t come. I’ll keep trying though.

[vivi-theakuneko]

Second one to blame for GO Finale.

[purpie-goddess]

"In every universe" EXCEPT THE ONE THAT MATTERED

[twilightofthesandwiches]

And what if I never needed their souls to be 'intertwined by fate'? What if all that I needed is for them to love each other because they have known and understood and shaped each other for so long? And what if I never cared about them ‘finding each other in every universe?’ What if all that I wanted is for them, in this universe where the odds were so stacked against them, to choose each other?

[pekingopera]

huber0203

[vivi-theakuneko]

Enough jokes. Time to unleash the angst.

Based on this