I’m trying to get into drawing more again, and his face is just my favorite thing. You’re all my inspiration, your talents makes me want to do more things ❤️
When I seriously tried to end my life, I was taken to a hospital. There were people who took care of me. Back then, I couldn’t accept it. I hated it. I didn’t want to be saved. I just wanted everything to end. To stop existing, you know.
So, for months, I was cut off from the freedom to choose what to do with my own life, until it became clear that I was no longer a danger to myself.
Did that mean I could accept it at the time? No. It felt like they were torturing me on purpose. Like it was cruelty. I saw the world through agony because the world was agony to me.
That’s how depression works.
Even after I was no longer under clinical supervision.
And now I am grateful that my “free will” was restricted, because if that free will means self-destruction, then now, being alive and functional, I can say this with certainty: yes, the will of a person who wants to destroy themselves should be temporarily restricted.
Yes. That is the right thing to do.
I can say that because I was there.
Sometimes I still don’t want to live. But now I keep going. There is therapy. There is medication. There is an understanding that the way I saw the world back then was shaped by illness.
That doesn’t make this world any better, of course.
But it also doesn’t mean that the worldview of someone in the depths of severe clinical depression can be even remotely objective or justified.
I want to ask the writers of Good Omens 3:
What gave you the right to use a character—one beloved by tens of thousands of living, traumatized people—to tell them that suicide is the answer if you’re suffering?
That it’s funny to mock a depressed character, and then have him kill himself, presenting it as some higher wisdom or whatever other bullshit.
That it’s romantic?
That it makes sense because… because—WHAT?
Because of fucking determinism and because the world is so unfair?
Who gave you the right to be this cruel and dismissive?
Who gave you the right to spread something this deeply sick?
Who gave you the right to literally tear open barely healed wounds for people for whom this character and this story were hope, a way to survive?
Are you telling me that back then, when I wanted to die, I should have died? That I should have been given that “choice”?
Is that what you’re saying?
The truth is, I don’t think this wound will ever heal.
Because the more I understand what they did to my Crowley, to my Good Omens, to us—the worse it gets.
Ilya Rozanov: Marley I have something really important to tell you. I have hidden a secret about myself for a long time. You are one of my closest friends, and I hope that knowing this doesn’t change anything…I’m bisexual
(If you aren’t in a place to read some GO3-critical analysis, this isn’t the post for you. No criticism intended! I have friends I like and respect very much who disagree with me on this subject. Curate your experience! Mute these tags, block me, whatever you need to do. I won’t take it personally.)
Because of who I am as a person, I can’t stop noodling about what the Good Omens Finale was actually trying to do. Temporarily setting aside whether I liked it (I did not) — what was it trying to do? What was the writers’ logic and thought process in the decisions they made?
Okay, let’s work backwards from the dramatic climax, and see if we can follow the critical plot path. What had to happen so that the climax could happen?…
Aziraphale and Crowley sacrifice their existence, because apparently that’s a necessary condition to create a world without God judging people for their choices, which seems to be Crowley’s definition of “real free will.” (This condition has never been so much as hinted at before, but okay, sure. For the sake of argument, let’s accept it.)
Aziraphale and Crowley have to be able to summon God using the Book of Life so that they can negotiate their sacrifice.
Michael’s Book of Life rampage has to happen, so that Aziraphale and Crowley have a reason to summon God.
Aziraphale and Crowley have to be together when Michael’s Book of Life rampage happens, so that they can negotiate the sacrifice together.
Aziraphale has to come back to Earth so he and Crowley can be together when the Book of Life rampage happens.
Heaven has to lose Jesus so that Aziraphale can have a reason to come back to Earth.
The Second Coming has to be planned so that Heaven can lose Jesus.
Aziraphale has to go back to Heaven to plan the Second Coming because ???
This is where working backwards falls apart for me. If the ultimate goal was to get A & C together in the same place for the climactic Book of Life destruction… they were already in the same place at the end of S1. Why did they need to be separated and then brought back together?
Ordinarily, I’d think it was done to ramp up the emotional stakes for the poignant climax. You know, give them a happy reunion, really give them hope, so that the sacrifice hits that much harder.
But the reunion isn’t written as happy at all — it’s bitter and angry and cold. If anything, it lowers the emotional stakes for the sacrifice, because their getting back together already feels hopeless.
So, narratively, what was the breakup and reunion for?
Maybe there’s an argument that Michael losing out on the Supreme Archangel promotion is what set off the Book of Life rampage? So Aziraphale had to get the promotion? And the breakup was just a side effect of that?
This gets hazy. Was that actually what set Michael off? And why was Aziraphale’s promotion needed for that to happen, as opposed to someone else’s?
All I can come up with is that the entire F15 breakup existed so that the ultimate sacrifice scene — where Crowley sacrifices their chance at happiness for the greater good of humanity — could be a callback to an earlier scene where Aziraphale had been the one wanting to make that sacrifice.
Something something, Aziraphale is foolishly willing to sacrifice their happiness for a pointless reason, all in the name of being “good” and “angelic,” but in the end we get the ✨ ironic twist ✨: Crowley the demon is the truly good and truly angelic one, because he’s the one willing to sacrifice their happiness when it really helps humanity.
I don’t like it. But setting that aside, it’s all I can come up with for what the thought process might have been.
Temporarily accepting for the sake of argument that Aziraphale had to go back to Heaven, we can start working backwards through S2:
Gabriel has to run away with Beelzebub so that Aziraphale can get promoted so that Aziraphale can go back to Heaven
Gabriel has to lose and regain his memory before running away with Beelzebub so that ???
It’s unclear what any of that Gabriel amnesia plot was needed to set up.
Why not replace the whole “hiding amnesiac Gabriel from Heaven and Hell” plot in S2 with a “hiding Jesus from Heaven and Hell” plot? Then A & C are together when they need to be. It also gives them the realization that their happiness can never really be safe while Heaven and Hell still exist, because they’ll always be dragged back into the power struggle. They realize that all of humanity is in the same boat. That no one can ever truly be free. That sets up a motivation for their sacrifice.
I still don’t like this storyline. I would still argue that Aziraphale and Crowley would never give up on their universe. That thematically, the whole idea of “sacrifice themselves to create a new universe” contradicts the book/S1.
To me, the ultimate thesis of the book and of S1 is that humanity has the power to save itself. That humanity’s real power lies in imagination, empathy, self-determination, love and friendship and family, and making our own meaning out of everyday joys. That this power is stronger than any god, if we only choose to claim it.
Aziraphale and Crowley sacrificing themselves, erasing their whole universe to get God to start over with a new one, making that decision for humanity… because humanity is helpless and hopeless in the face of God’s ineffable game, so helpless that humanity has already been destroyed … it contradicts everything I understood and loved about Good Omens.
But if S3 insisted upon a “noble sacrifice to erase everything and start over” storyline, at the very least it could have been coherent about it.
i feel so defensive and protective of people with ARFID like if i had a disorder that made my brain register 90% of food as poison for no reason and i had a bazillion people on the internet constantly calling me a manchild who needs to just grow up and stop being a picky eater i would start killing people
people with ARFID and people with very few autism safe foods and people with contamination OCD and people in ED recovery and everyone else with a complicated relationship with food that no one takes seriously GET BEHIND ME!!!!!!!
AO3 does not live in “the cloud” because that is other people’s computers, and other people’s computers are vulnerable to censorship.
AO3 is on its own computers. It does still have to be housed somewhere, and I suppose a determined enough hater could try to find that place and go after it, but it’s a lot harder than sending spurious complaints to Amazon or whomever going “BadWrong things are hosted on your cloud service!”
When people involved with AO3 talk about “the cost of servers” they don’t mean “the cost to pay Amazon for space on their servers.” They mean, like, the cost to physically own them, and eventually replace them with new ones. And the operating costs to run them.
AO3 is not “in the cloud.” AO3 is stored on physical machines that the OTW owns.
While this is not a solution that can work for everyone who wants to deal with controversial content, it is why AO3ple sneer at alt-righters who complain about getting thrown off hosting platforms.
Because I want us to own the goddamned servers, ok? Because I want a place where we can’t be TOSed and where no one can turn the lights off or try to dictate to us what kind of stories we can tell each other.
The conversation surrounding cultural appropriation has been so severely mutilated by white “allies” that the original intention behind that conversation has become almost unrecognizable in most social contexts.
To explain what I mean, the conversation around cultural appropriation was started by black and native people to discuss the frustrations we feel at being punished socially and financially for partaking in our cultural heritage while white people could take, I.e. appropriate, aspects of our culture that we are actively shamed for and be heralded as innovators. It was about the frustrations we feel when the same white people who shamed us would take our culture and wear it as if they were the ones who created it while still actively shaming us for doing the same.
The original push behind naming cultural appropriation and having these conversations were so that we as a society could evaluate why we were punished for our heritage while white People were not. It was supposed to be about seeking solutions. The idea was to create a society where we could celebrate our cultures with impunity. It was never about telling white people that they “weren’t allowed” to do certain things. We did ask that white People stop doing certain things because they weren’t doing them respectfully and were not invited to do them, but the primary reason we asked them to desist was to reclaim the things they had stolen and to reassign them culturally back where they belonged.
White “allies” saw these conversations happening and instead of trying to aplify our own voices or even try to learn about the complexities behind why we were saying what we were saying, they instead began screaming over us and creating a narrative that was hardly even the bones of what we originally set out to say. It was like they took the conversation we were trying to have, completely decontextualized it, and stripped it of all it’s nuance in order to gain social currency by seeming progressive.
So the conversation around cultural appropriation went from “This aspect of our heritage belongs to us and we find it egregious that we are shamed for it. What steps can we take to address the racism that’s creating this situation as well as rehome the things that have been stolen” to “you’re not allowed to do that because if you do that you’re racist, we don’t really understand why that’s racist but you’re not allowed to do that and if you do that you’re a klansman no exceptions. So you’re not allowed because because”
At the end of the day, did I like the fact that sally was wearing dreads? No. But my primary concern was not that sally was wearing dreads but rather that sally could wear dreads and I couldn’t. THAT was the intended focus of those conversations. It was about addressing the inequality. It was about us. Now the conversation is just about sally and were completely forgotten.
White People are always asking me what they can do to help. You want to know? Stop talking. Aplify our voices and shut the fuck up because you all have pretty much derailed this conversation and many more like it to the point that we no longer are trying to make steps to understand and dismantle the racism around cultural appropriation and instead are just using it as social shaming tactics.
TL;DR: read my post. Most things worth learning about can’t be summarized in the bullet points of a buzfeed article. Don’t come into academic circles and complain because everything hasn’t been conviently summarized for you. Stop pretending that things aren’t accessible to you because you refuse to do the intellectual labor that is learning.
"In a story about Armageddon it's stupendous marvelous writing to actually let armageddon happen it defies the expectations GENIUS!!!!"
I don't know you, but what I'm expecting from a story that is a comedy about stopping Armageddon, is that despite all the odds, Armageddon gets stopped. Possibly in a humorous way.
Having Armageddon happen and call it defying the odds and expectations is fundamentally not understanding how stories work: you give me an ineluctable outcome, then our heroes triumph despite everything. That's defying the expectation. Transforming a comedy that had already defied the odds into a pointless tragedy that is a bad copycat of the previous story? It's boring storytelling.
Letting everything go to kingdom come IS the expected outcome, am I supposed to be positively impressed lol?
There's a quote from TP on stories and hope that lives rent free in my head, long before this finale even came out, it just explains what I love about stories and books in general.
I always think of the description I saw years ago: Self-imposed deadlines don't help me, because I know the person who set them, and they're full of shit.
I feel as though, seeing as I made a post about Aziraphale it’s only fair I make one about Crowley.
I think that the notion that Aziraphale loses a lot of agency in the show is much easier to grasp from the get-go. Even in season 1, his increased reliance on Crowley’s cunning and actual magical prowess puts him a step behind his companion. What makes it more obvious is exactly that - it’s a step behind, while Crowley’s character shift is a false step “forward.” The fact that it has a negative impact of the story is obscured by the fact that Crowley’s added backstory feels like character development, even if its development that undermines the humanist principles of the original good omens.
In the book, as far as I’m aware, he was never able to stop time, he was never inferred to be an archangel, and he was never actually as totally, heroically, unquestionably devoted to humanity as show-Crowley.
Does he love humanity? Yes. Does he also love causing a considerable amount of misery to befall the average person purely to humour himself? Yes, and he is very aware of the conundrum this presents.
Book-Crowley is a coward - a snake! While he subverts the typical persona of a literal demon from Hell with his love for expensive houseplants and his lack of desire to actually, physically hurt people, he has to constantly rationalise the pain he does cause. Not because it’s his job - but because, to a degree, he enjoys it.
Designing the M25 and tangling London phone lines for a day brings him joy in the action itself - he’s a mischief maker, it’s what he does. The subversion of his character comes from the guilt that goes with it, the kindness that makes him stick around at the end of the world.
His motive for stopping the apocalypse might vaguely include humans from the get-go, but an actual devotion to “protecting” them doesn’t really form until the end of the book, at the airbase, and evolves from a belief that is present throughout the book that the divine plan is, at heart, unfair.
Book-Aziraphale’s skepticism of Heaven seems less obvious than Crowley’s because he hasn’t been given as much of a reason to doubt - he never fell. Both of them possess strength in questioning their individual sides, Crowley just has a head start on questioning Heaven because he was actually kicked out.
In any case, the true courage of book Crowley comes from his fear. It might not be as obvious as Aziraphale’s more squirrelly, nervous mannerism because Aziraphale doesn’t have the benefit of shades and a well-cut suit. But Crowley’s fear, from the chapters in his POV, is actually far greater. Which is why it’s so incredible that he drives the Bentley through a wall of fire, gets to the airbase, and sticks around! Not because he’s always been that gallant, but because he hasn’t, yet deep down inside him (as Aziraphael says) that bravery, that nobility, is there.
Book-Crowley is slightly less embittered by his fall and his background - partly because it’s not so much of a focus in the book, partly because humanity has had the “opposite” effect on him that it’s had on Aziraphale, it’s made not only his kindness, but his (Crowley’s) softness and courage rise and come through the sorrow and the bitterness and the light sprinkling of evil. He’s still a tragic character, it’s hard for a fallen angel not to be, but the story is less about his tragedy and more about who it has made him after the fact.
He and Aziraphael teach each other lessons. Again, Aziraphale’s views might be coated in the moral high-horsery of Heaven from time-to-time, but at their cores they’re both good people, good friends (or…whatever they are), who engage on an equal-footing.
Show-Crowley is a much more overtly *tragic* figure, who is still overcoming and in some ways in the midst of his own tragedy. A powerful (presumed archangel**) angel, Star-maker, cast down from Heaven and forced to watch all that he created shrivel up and burn in the apocalypse, while the still-an-angel he loves is torn from him by the same Paradise that cast him out.
Show-Crowley is more powerful than book-Crowley and, if not more jaded, post s1 he is certainly more morose.
Book Crowley is an optimist, he has to be, for all his fear. Show-Crowley, even in s1, seems too world-weary for this optimism to take hold. It heightens the gap between he and Aziraphael and, frankly, makes for a less interesting character resolution.
Tragic-Crowley (who seems out of place in a story that otherwise fails to impart that it’s characters (bar Crowley) are actually IN a tragedy) sacrificing himself for a new world, not even the world he’s from, seems heart-wrenching in the worst way possible. He’s given up - there’s quite literally no hope from the world he comes from, so he and Aziraphale, whose relationship has been burnt beyond repair, must die with it.
Think about a similar ending with book-Crowley. He’s just found Aziraphale, after having been separated in a gut-wrenching way, and now he’s faced with the end of the world. This whole time he’s been doing his best to fight against that very scenario - he’s an optimist, after all, but now he and his best friend are faced with one last impossible decision. Does this not feel like more of an appropriately, actually tragic ending? That they’ve gotten to this point despite fighting against it with all the optimism and hope in the world, as desperate to protect humanity as any regular human would be, not some heart-broken, former-angelic overseer?
Show-Crowley had already given up, book-Crowley likely wouldn’t have, heartbroken as he was, and neither quite frankly would s1 Crowley. That version sacrificing himself at the end - after being portrayed as a coward who learns to be brave, rather than a martyr who always has been, would feel much more impactful imho.
I’m not saying it’s my favourite ending - and I do think book/s1 Crowley would definitely advocate for the old world to stay, just without angels and demons. But even a slight tweaking of the character would have made it far more effective.
This being said - similar to Sheen’s performance as Aziraphale, David Tennant is an amazing actor and plays the role he has been given excellently. You can see the stark difference between angel Crowley and Demon Crowley and, as a character seperated from book and s1 Crowley, I can certainly see the appeal of such a world-weary, tragic figure, just not one that comes at the expense of the story itself and to the detriment of the development and agency of other characters.
** not actually presumed archangel, but still noticeably powerful
and while we’re at it, fuck this idea that ONE ACCOUNT has to belong uniquely to ONE PERSON. This is the same thing these silicon valley fucks want; their vision of the future where everyone has a unique biometric ID code implanted in their body is the ultimate extension of Netflix’s “no password sharing” policy. You want to use your friend’s car? Sorry, you can’t, you need to be an authorized user. Your mother wants to let you look something up on her OED account? Too bad! That’s only for her! The concept of perfect market efficiency gives them greedy little money bag eyes.
If I pay money to have a newspaper sent to my house, they don’t charge me extra when I show it to my dad. This password sharing thing isn’t just a Netflix problem; don’t be surprised if it shows up elsewhere in other forms. Stamp this idea out now or we’ll be stuck with it.
This is by far the most popular post I have and I have to say: good, I’m right. Password sharing and ID verification are going to kill the internet. not oooh in 50 years. in like 5 more.
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