gentlemanjuniper

[gentlemanjuniper]

MESSI THE DOG at the 96th Academy Awards (March 10, 2024)

#good dog #can't believe he did it

[gentlemanjuniper]

PLEASE WATCH

video from bisan in gaza. this message is from Palestinians opening up regarding the specific things they would like to say if the whole world was watching.

bisan, motaz, plestia and many other journalists in gaza are being accused by israel of working for hamas just because they have tirelessly strived to document the inhumane atrocities the people of haza have been subjected to. DO NOT LET THEM BE SILENCED. they are the eyes of history, and through them you and me see. we must never stop talking abouts this. EVER.

[gentlemanjuniper]

[gentlemanjuniper]

but 'slutty' to Aziraphale one tug loose on his bowtie and no cufflinks

Aziraphale probably thinks crowley is out there tempting people all seductively and hot because he thinks crowley is seductive and hot while in actuality crowley’s just some rained out loser [affectionate] moving road signs or whatever in the middle of the night. So like one day in their Arrangement with capital A for some reason crowley decides to secretly follow aziraphale to watch him try and ‘be crowley’ and act demon-y and tempt people and that’s when he finds out that for tempting occasions aziraphale just wears the sluttiest outfits he can find and crowley’s brain just… short circuits

[gentlemanjuniper]

I am screaming look at these photos

Cut scene of Crowley sleeping on a WALL in his PAJAMAS (HE WEARS PAJAMAS ((AND BLACK SILK ONES AT THAT)))

(From the Script book) He DOES wake up a mess and he DOES clean up instantly (WE WERE ROBBED OF MESSY HAIR CROWLEY)

CONCEPT ART FOR CROWLEYS BEDROOM

I CANT

[gentlemanjuniper]

#good omens

[gentlemanjuniper]

ed: "let's go slow"

fandom, probably right: the boys are being healthy and communicating well

me, lover of drama: nah Ed's just fucked up by what Mary said that once the mystery and spark is gone all that's left is resentment and fury so he's trying to draw it out bc some part of him still believes stede will leave again and prove once and for all that he is eternally unloveable

#our flag means death #our flag means death spoilers #ofmd #ofmd spoilers #do i actually think this is where the show is going? no #do i sort of wish it was? yeah kinda #moreso something i hope fic explores #ed desperately trying not to fuck stede #in the hopes it will further delay their inevitable decay as a couple #i do not believe edward teach could accurately assess a healthy boundary to save his life #gentlebeard

[gentlemanjuniper]

it's gut-stabbingly, harrowingly unfathomable that mary and anne did not kiss amidst the flames of their burning antiques and armoirs in THAT final scene

#ofmd #our flag means death #ofmd spoilers #our flag means death spoilers #ofmd season 2 spoilers

[gentlemanjuniper]

I have a feeling that beneath the little halo on your noble head There lies a thought or two the devil might be interested to know You're like the finish of a novel that I'll finally have to take to bed You fascinate me so

You Fascinate Me So, Blossom Dearie

[gentlemanjuniper]

Crowley starts off his confession already terrified, already most of the way to mourning, but his voice really starts to go to pieces when he says “and we’ve spent our entire existence pretending we aren’t. Well, these last few years, not really.” And you can just see it sinking in — after all these years of pretending, this is all we get? These few years of half-admitting, half-having? Never saying it was love?

I think that’s why he can’t get through “and I would like to spend — ”. Whatever time we have left together. Really together. Before it all comes apart. He’s just realizing that after all this time, he won’t get to.

[gentlemanjuniper]

I wanted this post to be more coherent but I am coming apart at the seams. Listen. Listen to me. Listen look no look me in the eyes and listen LISTEN.

Crowley and Aziraphale know. They're in love, and they know. Their love is requited, and they know. That's why it hurts so much! They don't say it. They can't say it. The consequences for both of them could be disastrous. But they know, they know, they know.

This is forbidden love at it's absolute pinnacle. This is centuries of dancing around an unsayable, inescapable truth. Loving someone this way is intense. It's a fiercely romantic headrush, because everything is high stakes fantasy and it's you and your beloved against the world. It's a soul crushing nightmare because the thing you want more than anything is always there, just out of reach. It's passion and yearning and stolen touches and desperately hoping the other person understands all the things you can't say.

It's also just unbelievably stupid. You have a sizzling moment of intimacy with someone and then three days later you're trying to act like business associates.

This dynamic has been present since season one, and sometimes the atmosphere between Crowley and Aziraphale becomes urgent and surreal enough that they almost name it. There's the bandstand, where Crowley suggests they could run away together. There's Aziraphale in 1967 saying, maybe one day we'll dine at the Ritz. These aren't the words of those unsure of another's feelings. These are declarations made in the clearest terms they dare.

The clincher for me is Aziraphale's face when Shax says she wouldn't have thought he was Crowley's type. It's a nasty comment meant to play on Aziraphale's insecurities: "If you're anything to him, it must be something sordid, and I'm surprised you can even offer him that." And she completely misses the mark! Aziraphale disregards her words without a thought. That eyebrow says he knows exactly how Crowley feels about him, and Shax's insinuation is laughable. He is uniquely Crowley's type.

It's less definitive for Crowley, and it makes sense that it would be. For the most part, Crowley is the accelerator and Aziraphale is the brakes. It is hard to hold faith that someone wants you when all they can tell you is "slow down". That doesn't mean he's unsure of Aziraphale's feelings. It means that he's unsure how much he's allowed to say. Aziraphale wants him to push right up until he doesn't, and it hurts them both when they go too far and have to walk it back. Even so, Crowley's confession makes it pretty clear that they're both in on this unspoken thing between them:

"you and me ... group of the two of us ... and we've spent our existence pretending that we aren't"

And then he kisses Aziraphale. And he doesn't do it carefully or tentatively. He doesn't wait for Aziraphale to be ready. Because that's how this dance goes, isn't it? Aziraphale wants him to push, and it's going to hurt and they're going to have to walk it back but fuck it all because Crowley is going to give them the thing they've spent their existence pretending they didn't want.

[gentlemanjuniper]

VAVOOM

[gentlemanjuniper]

Just sketching some fluff

[gentlemanjuniper]

a longing.

[gentlemanjuniper]

I am also ace and I completelyyyy agree. I also just think the fandom is infinitely richer and more diverse a place if we let all sorts of readings (and relationships to sex and romance) flourish and don't pin them down to any one thing. They're fictional at the end of the day, and fiction exists for us to explore rather than define or solve.

As an asexual Good Omens fan

There's something I've noticed in this fandom that makes me really uncomfortable, and that is the way that Crowley and Aziraphale's possible asexuality is constantly being connected to and justified by them being not human.

I just honestly really hate that, because implying that asexuality is something that somehow "logically" follows from characters being nonhuman is ... not great. Like, I hate having to be the one to point this out, but asexuality is, in fact, very much a human attribute.

And unfortunately, most of the time when I come across this take, it doesn't feel like someone seeing themselves in the characters and relating to their experience, but rather an othering, this kind of otherwordly pure non-sexualness, where people put these characters above such trivial things like sexuality.

I am not asexual because I am somehow confounded by this oh so complicated human concept of sexuality, or because I don't ever think or care about sexuality at all (a lot of thinking was unfortunately involved actually before I finally came to a conclusion about my identity) it is just a fact of who I am, as a human being, it’s a part of my human experience.

And let's be honest, attributing asexuality to nonhuman characters is not the hot new take a lot of people seem to think it is — this trope has been around for ages. And it hasn't done a great deal to normalize asexuality. In fact I'd argue it's perpetuated an othering of ace people, but you take what you can get, really. (This is not to say that it is in any way wrong to identify with these kinds of characters, I definitely do, too! It's just sad that the topic of discussion is always about how "human" someone can be considered when they don't feel sexual or romantic attraction)

To be honest, I don't actually see A&C being asexual as canon — as a lot of people seemingly do — just because the author kind of suggested it in a tweet where he basically conflates "asexual" and "sexless" (for the record, this is not a dig at Neil, I just think the implications were kind of unfortunate, even if it might not have been intentional, which makes it all the more frustrating that a lot of fans just ran with it). And yeah, going around calling people aphobic for seeing the Ineffable Husbands as gay rep or any other identity, when they’re oh so obviously canonically ace, is honestly kind of insane.

I get that it might feel nice and tempting to be able to "claim" these characters and this relationship and being able to tell other fans off whose headcanons on their sexuality differ from your own because it is hard to come by any kind of representation when you're ace and there's finally a creator who's not only not contemptuous towards but even supportive of fans reading his characters as queer. And if you feel represented by A&C as it is then all the more power to you. But the thing is, it doesn't matter what kind of justifications there are or what canon might or might not say (bc when has that ever mattered in fandom spaces) or what the creator says, you cannot convert people to your opinion about a character, and you're going to have a bad time if you spend your time in fandom trying to do that.

And really, I am just wondering why we necessarily even need an explanation or justification for them possibly being asexual. Why does it have to be that all angels and demons are asexual by virtue of being nonhuman, and so A&C have to be too? why can't that just be an aspect of them that is completely unrelated to them not being human? Could these characters maybe not simply identify as asexual, not because they're nonhuman, but in spite of it? (btw, in the same vein it is equally stupid to argue that A&C can't be ace because they have "gone native", which is also an argument I've come across)

Honestly, I'm not even asking anyone to fundamentally change how they see these characters here — if you think they must be asexual solely because they're angels and have no concept of human sexuality, then whatever, I can't stop you and I don’t want to police anyone's headcanons bc as I said that's stupid and a waste of time. What I am asking you is that you maybe reflect a little bit on why exactly it is that humanity and sexuality are somehow so intrinsically linked in your mind to the point where you automatically use it as a way to distinguish between human and nonhuman characters.

Anyways.

Tldr: please stop equating asexuality with non-humanness thank you and good day.

#good omens

[gentlemanjuniper]

Reasons why, "And we've spent our existence pretending that we aren't" is haunting me weeks later:

There's a self-awareness here that wouldn't exist if Crowley only just realized he and Aziraphale act like a couple once Nina said it. He's known this for a long, long time to say they've both been pretending

Relatedly, Crowley says it's mutual. He thinks Aziraphale has acted like a romantic partner towards him, knows it, and has been in denial

Crowley thinks they've been like a couple since the beginning. It's not, "We've spent the last 100 years pretending that we aren't" or "We gradually drifted from our sides and formed our side." He thinks their relationship has been fundamentally the same their entire lives

The voice crack

How frightened Aziraphale is that Crowley is breaking the rules of their little unspoken dance and actually calling out what they are

#good omens

[gentlemanjuniper]

Crowley literally fighting for his life here looking like he's about to throw up and pass out trying to 'hold that thought'