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Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
saanphoenix

I’m sorry, I really am, because I’m gonna rub some folks the wrong way, but when I read Good Omens years ago, the Crowley I read was NOT the uwu one I see has become the fandom norm.

The Crowley I read was a guy who quite liked existing and was determined to keep doing so. When he’s handed the Antichrist, he doesn’t want the kid. This creature threatens the world he enjoys, his current existence, and he considers killing him. The only thing that stops him is the consideration that if he were to do that “something dreadful” would happen.

He was very much, “Don’t tread on me.” He didn’t like being called nice, he didn’t like his actions being seen as good, because if that were to happen–with the walls, and the trees, and the ducks having ears–and Hell found out, he would have a Very Bad Time of it.

Where this, “Crowley would never hurt a child or lash out at Aziraphale,” mentality came from I just don’t know. Because he DID do those things. Or thought about it until he realized it’d bite him in the ass. He almost drowned a duck! He turned all the paintball guns into real ones because it was funny (and a distraction)! And you could argue, “But everyone had miraculous escapes!” and I have to argue back, “Remember the beginning of the book at Warlock’s party where they MISSED a gun?” Accidents happen. It was a risk he was willing to take.

He was still ready to throw down with the Antichrist to save the world.

Crowley was never a saint just because he revived a dove. I never took that moment to be the defining moment of his character, his one grand act of Goodness. Which is why I don’t care that scene was changed in the TV show.

Because the TV show gives us so many more instances of Crowley being good. More MEANINGFUL examples of Crowley being good. He risked his ass so many times to save his friend, and then to save the world. The dove pales in comparison, for me.

And that’s probably why I don’t belong in the fandom. I just don’t agree.

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timeladies

crowley is SO terrified of losing aziraphale. he *conveniently* shows up just when aziraphale gets in trouble. he’s always ready to protect him. when the apocalypse is finally coming and stopping it altogether doesn’t seem to be an option anymore, he doesn’t want to run away just to preserve his current lifestyle. he wants to run away because the great war will endanger aziraphale’s life that needs to be protected. that’s what he realises when he’s driving back home from the fight in soho. there’s no point in saving himself if he can’t save aziraphale too. so we witness him enter a building on fire searching for a sign of him or his body and screaming and suffering because it was the first and only time crowley wasn’t there to save him. because he was angry with him. because he was trying to do precisely that. the pain and anguish and GUILT are unimaginable.

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avelera

Anonymous asked:

they really could've made anathema and newton's characters so interesting and they just???? didn't????

They’ve sort of always felt like “Necessary” Characters to me even in the book -like, you’re writing a genre book, you need to Check The Boxes, so there needs to be a young man and a young woman who… fall in love and have sex at some point… right? And the the authors just… Didn’t Know What To Do With Them? 

I mean, other than have Anathema get the prophecies down to us? But Aziraphale owns a bookstore, there was no need for Agnes Nutter to have a literal ongoing line of descendants to get the book into the narrative. 

It almost feels like hesitance and fear on the part of the authors to even feel the need to have them there, like they realized they’d made a book full of Interesting Side Characters (Aziraphale and Crowley, Adam and the Them as technically the main antagonist, Shadwell and Tracy, etc.) and then self-consciously realized there were no boring traditional protagonists to round it all out because of course, the angel and demon are just an amusing Greek Chorus to events, right? And Adam’s the Antichrist, and Shadwell’s just comic relief so… now what?

I mentioned it in my liveblog but IF you gave the show to me for a re-write, I’d at least try to tie Pulsifer’s character a little more directly into the story? I know it’s cliche to have someone “born” into the role but Newton is so close to that anyway with being a Pulsifer, he and Anathema have this Romeo & Juliet thing kinda right on the tip of the tongue, but it never happens? When it showed him supernaturally crashing computers I was like, “Oh, his family must have been cursed by Agnes, that makes sense, that’s why he’s joining the witch finders, right?” 

Except then that… didn’t happen? There’s no explanation? He just sort of… drifts into working with Shadwell, which is patently insane? Like Shadwell legitimately comes across as a dangerous religious lunatic and it made me wonder what the heck is wrong with Newton, like personally, that he’d even consider it? Getting fired a few times just didn’t seem like a strong enough reason, like, just find a job without computers, it’s not like Shadwell’s paying very well, so what do you want if not money? To hunt witches, which are usually women? Either Newton’s just very dense or that comes across as rather troublesomely malicious. 

Also Shadwell just never really came together for me as a character in the show, they cut a lot of his even worse offensiveness than he already had, thankfully, but he still feels out of place and seems to have little to do? Certainly Tracy’s reversal on him at the end felt more like desperation because he’s literally the only man her age that was introduced and not because they had some touching moment, he’s just There.

IMO, you just cut Shadwell and make Newton into Shadwell’s role (or keep Shadwell but make him a mentor figure in the background instead of the one calling all the shots and doing all the things. Actually, there was no reason we really needed to see Newton’s whole lead up to becoming a witch hunter because it was SO weird it would have made more sense to just show him already working there?). 

So for my Newton/Shadwell combo character, gimme a young, semi-fanatical witch hunter 20/30-something who is very keen to find witches, because his family was cursed to be catastrophic failures at everything they touched ever since his ancestor burned Agnes at the stake. He wants to find someone who can lift his curse or get revenge but since he’s obviously really, supernaturally bad at his job, he ends up finding Agnes’s descendent and only too late realizes who she is when they fall in love while trying to stop the Apocalypse. Then we learn the reason for the curse wasn’t malice, Agnes knew they’d need someone to crash the computers and that was what the curse was all along: a supernatural gift meant to save the world, someday, and now that it’s saved the curse it’s lifted and THEN we get her nudging Anathema about how they were meant to be in the SEQUEL prophecies, not right up front (which was gross and weird and kinda creepy?)

Anyway, it’s a 30 year old book at this point, the show is made, no one’s taking my script notes. But damn I mean seriously, Newton was so inexpertly written compared to the others. Characters should have goals, their goals and desires should tie in to the main  arc of your story somehow, and things shouldn’t happen to them just because. Rather, they should take purposeful action to deciding their own destinies from moment to moment, even if it’s just purposeful action to get a cup of tea, and for some bizarre reasons Newton’s arc seems like a deliberate a snooze fest because he doesn’t want anything and Anathema’s story gets dragged down with him the minute they cross paths.

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