good omens getting on the new york times best sellers list for the first time twenty nine years after its initial publication as a result of the miniseries coming out, the miniseries being made as terry pratchett’s dying wish to neil gaiman
i have no self-control
two people unfollowed me for this and honestly i don’t really blame them
today someone from the House of Representatives watched this bird dance to Hotline Bling
The bandstand breakup hurts me because for me, it’s that gay moment of realization about a best friend: oh, I don’t just love you, I love-love you. And I’m not allowed to do that. (Michael Sheen said Az fell in love with him in the church. He didn’t say he realized it.) To me, the moment Crowley asks Aziraphale to go away with him is the very moment Azi realizes Crowley wants him like that, and that makes him realize he wants Crowley like that. To have and to hold, not to be a screaming romantic about it. Which is so, so much worse than fraternizing with the enemy for practical reasons and a little lunchtime conversation.
And what’s worst is all along he’s trusted himself. Crowley told him to, in the garden: you’re an angel, I don’t think you can do anything wrong. Which is bullshit, but he’s been building a life on earth on the strength of that idea for millennia: if I want it it must be innocent. It must be good. It must be what heaven says is good. Michael Sheen says Aziraphale likes being himself. He’s content with himself and his slightly sketchy Arrangement and his love of the world until Gabriel shows up to draft him back into the Army of Heaven, which he’s technically never left. And all at once he realizes he’s not like them any more. Oh, I’m soft. It’s the moment growing up gay when you realize you’ve turned into something they didn’t raise you to be and you’re not sure how—didn’t you come from them? How did you turn out so different?
He’s not like them any more, he’s like Crowley. But he can’t be. That turns the last six thousand years of certainties inside out. Crowley can’t do good—they agreed on that, too, back in the garden. (Still bullshit.) Crowley’s always insisted that he isn’t kind, he doesn’t care. They can’t be in love—at which point he begins shouting at Crowley, absurdly: we’re an angel and a demon! We’re not (can’t be, shouldn’t have been) friends (in love?)! I’m trying to save the world while you’re trying to save yourself! You don’t love me! And I don’t like you (because you make me want things I’m not supposed to want, you make me want to save myself). What they are isn’t moral or immoral according to heaven and hell’s strategic definition, it’s just natural. But he’s always been told it isn’t—and every gay kid knows that story.
Does he know it’s not true while he’s saying it? I don’t know, but Crowley does. He’s come to terms long and slow with the fact that heaven didn’t want him, and it’s given him practice: he’s coping quite clearly with the fact that now hell won’t want him either if he sticks with Aziraphale and he doesn’t care. He doesn’t know why Aziraphale doesn’t see it too; there’s nothing for them better each other. If Aziraphale has internalized homophobia he can’t deal with, Crowley’s refused to hate himself for what they hate him for—he can’t let them have that. If Aziraphale’s the kid having a secret sexuality crisis Crowley’s the one whose brothers hated him for being gay before he even knew what that meant, who got yelled at for hanging around with those kinds of kids.
If they’d left it there maybe it really would have been a breakup. But Aziraphale, being the brave angel he is, has to go after the truth. So first he tests heaven—are you good? Did I get what’s good in me from you? Will you help me save the world? Can you see it’s worth it? And of course heaven’s answer is a resounding no. (God is quiet. God seems to be waiting to see what Aziraphale will do next.) Aziraphale’s love doesn’t belong to heaven, it belongs to him. (Our loves don’t belong to our families. They’re ours.)
And now that Azi has realized they are (can’t be) (are) in love everyone keeps bringing it back up. Crowley shows up again apologizing, pleading, shouting. A human passerby offers his sympathy on Azi’s heartbreak. Heaven informs him quite bluntly that they, at least, know exactly what Crowley is to him. They’ve been watching them date for millennia. Hell, humans and angels all agree: they’re in love. He’s like that. Azi is the only one who hadn’t seen it. So many of us realize late that our families knew we were gay long ago and hadn’t trusted us all along—had been waiting in fear for the day we recognized what they already saw.
I believe that’s the moment Aziraphale makes his decision—shortly after being held up against a brick wall by an archangel he thought he wanted to be like, who’s accusing him of being what he is. He decides he isn’t on their side. He lies to heaven and picks up the phone to tell Crowley instead—I trust you and only you to help me. I choose you. I choose me. I choose to trust myself. All of us who’ve come out to ourselves have had to make that choice—the moment we name to ourselves what we are, who we belong with.
That’s still a secret choice, though. The second big choice is the moment he gets sucked back up to heaven by accident. They’re handing out uniforms. He can rejoin the army and pretend he’s still what he always thought he was. He can leave earth and Crowley behind and be an angel. He doesn’t.
I’m not a very good angel, he says, and this time it’s not an apology, it’s not a regret. I’m soft. I’m not yours. I belong on earth. I am in love. He leaves heaven behind, and goes to Crowley. He doesn’t think it’s a happy ending—he thinks they’re going to die. He thinks Crowley will have already left earth—he doesn’t expect to be forgiven, let alone mourned. But he is, and that seals it—Crowley loves him in every way you can love somebody.
The next time Crowley asks him to come home with him, after it’s all over, Aziraphale has one more chance to make the choice: when it’s not a crisis, when it’s not Crowley or apocalypse, will he still risk it? He tells Crowley it’s still dangerous, nothing’s safe (are we ever safe being queer and in love? We never will be, not really), and Crowley says it doesn’t matter, they’re on their own side now. He’s not going to go back to denying he cares. He’s not going to let fear decide. And Aziraphale believes him.
He couldn’t believe him in the bandstand because he didn’t think “their side” was a solid reality the way heaven and hell were. He didn’t think Crowley could defend that reality if it came to a fight. He didn’t think it was something he could build a life on and still be himself, the person he’d always wanted to be. Now he knows he can. Heaven lied, and love is real. Love is love.
“Aziraphale’s love doesn’t belong to heaven, it belongs to him.”
I’m curled up in a ball right now, shaken that a book I bought and enjoyed the moment it was published (will see the series actually) has this much *love* in it. Romantic fluffy love, bloody fury love…then the love that comes on a soft question, the kind that asks each one of us what kind of love we are willing to fight for. To *live* for?
What really leaves me bleeding on the floor here is this question isn’t for the heroes, the villains, the strong or famous or rich or smart. It’s for everyone who ever cared about another. For everyone who ever wants to be loved for who they are.
OP has murdered my story complacency and I am grateful.
@maxxim-writes-here YES THAT. That’s it. Thank you for putting it so perfectly.
This is my attempt at a realistic Pseudonaja affinis, an elapid snake common in Western Australia. This was a requested design by a herpetologist studying these snakes for her PhD. The color Sequoia looks the most realistic for this snake which is sometimes called a Spotted Brown Snake
The 12 inch tail is knit like cord starting with very small needles. Most of the snake is stockinette worked back and forth. The head is knit in the round and requires a little hand sewing with a scrap of some non-fraying fabric similar in color to your yarn. You need some polyfill and eyes. I also added a patch of leather inside the head for shaping.
That scene where Aziraphale and Crowley get shot with paintballs is even more hilarious in the book because of the way it’s dramatized like these idiots get shot and we immediately cut away to an explanation of how Sister Mary Loquacious came to be a successful entrepreneur and when we get back to the ineffable morons Crowley has sunk to the ground, dramatically leaning against a statue and Aziraphale has straight up fallen over on his ass and stays lying down until Crowley, after a quick contemplation of how inconvenient it is to get discorporated at a time like this, realizes Shenanigans are Afoot, tastes the paint and crawls over to him to be like “hey Shenanigans are Afoot” like the adaptation gives them too much dignity in this scene when they both legit thought they were dying for at least a full minute
I’m pretty happy with how this has turned out tbh
A few mistakes but 🤷♀️
What do you think @shitpostsampler ?
We’re so proud of you for actually finishing this. This is a very large boi and it even intimidates us a little. But those little goats are too cute to resist!
ANGEL/DEMON OTP IS HERE JUST IN TIME FOR PRIDE! You can pre-order
this lovely Good Omens keychain from my Etsy store starting today! I
have 25 slots available for now and if those get filled up I’ll be sure
to restock soon after the first batch is sent out. If you have any
questions, feel free to ask!
arcticflakes
