musingsofmaisie

[musingsofmaisie]

This is the best possible reply. Merci Neil

What’s your favourite line from good omens?

The invisible and unbreakable one that joins Crowley and Aziraphale.

[musingsofmaisie]

The part that needs to be said, and said again, is that these characters are intentionally drawn exactly as we see them. And that the events of the final 15 were intentionally crafted to put viewers on opposite sides of the divide. That polarization is essential to generating buzz for what’s coming next. I’m ok with that, honestly.

I’m a committed #TeamCrowley but I’m sympathetic to that Aziraphale defenders, up to the point that they insert their own narratives to explain his actions. Everything he did and said was deliberate, and intended to produce the result it did.

We don’t know exactly what Neil has in mind for S3, but we do know that he has succeeded in getting us all thinking about possibilities.

First post! I made a tumblr account because of S2 of Good Omens. Literally no other reason. What a time to join the fandom!

Well, truthfully, I’ve been lurking around for a while, trying to get a feel for things. Now after processing some of the things i’ve seen, commenting, asking, etc, I thought why not make a post. It’s what you do, right? I won’t be offended if you take my outsider’s perspective with a grain of interloper salt.

So, I wrote this. A brief introduction: I’m a grown person with too many responsibilities and I’m spending my precious, infinitesimally small amount of free time typing my intrusive thoughts about a fictional angel and demon on my phone. Am I doing it right?

I think so. I’ve read some amazingly complex metas, character analyses, and wondrously intricate posts analyzing the significance of pretty much any and every detail you could want to read about on this site. Truly awesome investigations, intriguing connections and insightful inquisitions.

I’ve also read some character analyses that left me very, very concerned.

I know this is a t e n s e topic right now, but stick with me.

There is a fact walking around out there that I want to set the spotlight on:

Good Omens is a comedy.

Now, this isn’t important in a ‘y’all need to lighten up’ sort of way. This is important because of how comedies develop their sympathetic characters versus how tragedies develop their sympathetic characters.

Now, in my opinion, some of the best comedic fiction rides the tragedy line just right up to the edge without pushing it over. (See the movie Stranger Than Fiction for a fun example of this). But ultimately, while a tragedy primarily pulls your sympathy with the realism of the suffering of the characters, a comedy elicits your sympathy with the absurdism of their suffering. Now these two things are, importantly, not mutually exclusive - the dial between real and absurd has to be spun round and around to bring life to most stories, but eventually it will land on one or the other.

Very important note: suffering in absurdism is not a lower form of suffering than suffering in realism. Suffering is suffering, it’s just that sometimes the combinations of forces that inflict suffering have no business trying to act like they make any sense, and sometimes they are exactly what you’d expect them to be.

Also important fact! Crowley and Aziraphale are both, equally, the sympathetic characters in Good Omens. One is not subjected to tragic suffering whilst the other is dealt comedic suffering. They are both intended to be read as characters equally deserving of our sympathy.

Which in turn means, in GO, if you feel more sympathetic towards one of the Ineffables than the other, then that is the story showing you exactly where you have room to grow in your understanding of and capacity for sympathy.

Which brings us back to character analytics in fandoms.

While we are, without a doubt, discussing fiction, any publicly expressed opinions made while analyzing that fiction can have real world consequences.

When fans post biased, cruel, vengeful, hateful takes about a character in a story whose narrative is intended to shine a spotlight the absurd complexities of suffering and to challenge our ability to embrace and cultivate sympathy for someone we don’t understand, that has the potential to bring harm to the real world. If people aren’t willing to challenge themselves to recognize the value of sympathizing with the fictional characters whose actions are outside their understanding, then what do they take out into the real world? And if those fans find an echo chamber in a fandom because harmful language is treated the same as opinion language, then that can have additional damaging real world ramifications.

The last of the important notes, and a very important one: it sounds like there have been reports of harassment by users related to this topic. Harassment is never ever okay.

But it is crucial to speak up to say, no, some takes are not just opinion. It’s not just a simple scroll past or block. There are folks out there that have written posts detailing the harm and suffering that they want for a character because of how they perceive his actions - a character that is, without question, by the very nature of the story, one that is intended to be a recipient of their sympathy. These harmful takes need to be challenged.

It’s not about whether you agree or disagree with actions, it’s about whether or not you are capable of having compassion for a suffering character that is not contingent on your understanding of their motivations or perspective.

If you don’t have sympathy for one of the two sympathetic characters, then I think you’re missing a very important lesson that NG is trying to tell you.

To end on a light note, there are about 10,000 other things I’ve seen in this fandom that make me forget all of this. The ART, the fanfics, the absolutely bonkers metas, l love it. I have a couple crazy meta ideas myself but I think i’ve written enough for now. Be well everyone!

[musingsofmaisie]

Reblogging this because it's always important to renew this perspective.

“Crowley is still an angel deep down” “Crowley is more of an angel than any of the archangels” “Crowley was only cast out because he needed to play his part in Armageddon, he's not a real demon” “Aziraphale wants to rebuild Heaven to be more like Crowley because he’s what an angel should be” no. Stop it. This is exactly where Aziraphale went wrong.

Crowley is 100% a demon. He's not actually a bit of an angel, and he's not cosmically better than any of the other demons we see in the series. He's much less vicious than most of them, yeah, but he's also much less vicious than most of the angels, because how “nice” a celestial being is has nothing to do with which side they're technically on. Crowley's kindness comes from him doing his best to help people despite the hurt he's suffered himself, not any sort of inherent residual or earned holiness. He was cast out just like the rest of the demons, and that's an important part of his history that shouldn't be minimized, excused, or, critically, 'corrected.'

Being angelic is not a positive or negative trait in the Good Omens universe. It's a species descriptor. Saying that Crowley is still an angel deep down because he helps people is an in-character thing for Aziraphale to think, certainly--Job and the final fifteen showed that in the worst possible way--but it's not something Crowley would ever react well to, and it's the main source of conflict in the entire "appoint you to be an angel" fiasco.

We know that Aziraphale thinks Crowley's fall was an injustice, but why? Well, because Crowley is actually Good, which means his fall was a mistake, or a test, or a regrettable error in judgment, or…something. Ineffable. Etc. The point is, he’s special, much better than those other demons, and if they can fix him and make him an angel again, everything will be fine! (So once Job's trials are over, everything will be restored to him? Praise be!) Aziraphale has to believe that Crowley's better traits come from traces of the angel he used to know and not the demon he's known for 6,000 years, because that’s how he can rationalize his incorrect view of Heaven as The Source Of Truth And Light And Good with his complicated feelings about Crowley's fall.

But Crowley's fall was not an injustice because he's actually a Good Person who didn't deserve it. Crowley's fall was an injustice because the entire system of dividing people into Good (obedient) and Bad (rebellious) is bullshit. Crowley is not an unfortunate exception to God's benevolence, he is a particularly sympathetic example of God's cruelty.

And really, Crowley doesn't behave at all like an angel, especially when he's at his best. All of the things that he's done that we as the audience consider Good are things that Heaven has directly opposed. (See: saving the goats and children in defiance of God in S2E2, convincing Aziraphale to give money to Elspeth despite Heaven's views on the "virtues of poverty" in S2E3, speaking out against the flood and the crucifixion in S1E3, tempting Aziraphale to enjoy earthly pleasures because he thinks they'll make him happy, stopping Armageddon.)

Heaven as an institution has never been about helping humanity. And that's not an issue of leadership, as Aziraphale seems to think--it's by design. Aziraphale's first official act as an angel toward humanity was to literally throw them to the lions. Giving them the sword wasn't him acting like an angel, it was just him being himself. Heaven doesn't care about humans. It's not supposed to. It's supposed to win the war against Hell, with humans as chess pieces at best and collateral damage at worst.

Yes, it's easier to think that there are forces that are supposed to be fundamentally good. It's easier to think that Aziraphale is going to show those mean archangels and the Metatron what’s coming to them and reform Heaven into what it "should" be, and that God is actually super chill and watching all of this while shipping ineffable husbands and cheering for them the whole way. And of course it's easier to take Crowley, who Aziraphale (and the audience) adores, and say that he deserves to be on the Good team much more than all those angels and demons that we don’t like. But that's not how it works. People are more complicated than that, even celestial beings.

Crowley is a demon, and the tragedy of his character is not that he's secretly a good guy who is being forced to be evil; the tragedy is that he's lived his whole life stuck between two institutional forces that are both equally hostile to the love he feels for the universe and the beings in it. There are no good and bad guys. There are no "right people." Every angel, demon, and human is capable of hurting or helping others based on their choices. That is, in fact, the entire fucking point.

[musingsofmaisie]

They have become so used to the subtext that they can’t understand the actual text anymore

I love the idea of Crowley and Aziraphale being really good at non-verbal communication. They can read each other’s body language and facial expressions near perfectly. They’re also really good at speaking in code, and can in a heartbeat communicate a specific message to the other without anyone else in the room having any idea of what was being said. They’re excellent at giving each other suggestions, hints and little signs that convey something on their mind and they’re great at picking up on these when the other is giving them. But never, in their 6000 years of knowing each other, have they touched the idea of open and honest communication with a ten-foot pole. They haven’t even considered it.

[musingsofmaisie]

I love this

SAME PHOTO

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I suppose that there were more than a few Americans who had never seen a single episode of Good Omens or Staged, and so had no idea why this was so hilarious.

Oh to have acting chemistry in a meaningless little awards show sketch

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He is SUCH a fucking peacock. I love that for him.

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Here's the REAL flash bastard. The whole effing package.

#David Tennant #flash bastard #crowley hair #Scotsman in a kilt #awesome #Joshua Kane bespoke #MacGregor and MacDuff kings of kilts #holy moly #Mithradate bespoke

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We know who the REAL Prince of Wales is here.

And it's NOT the bald one.

#Michael Sheen Prince of Wales

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beautiful. the Gashlycrumb Times is a longtime favourite of mine.

My attempt at an Edward Gorey "Gashlycrumb Tinies" homage but make it Aziracrow. His style is so hard to reproduce and the crosshatching... my god the crosshatching.

Also feel I should apologize. No idea what possessed me to inflict this on myself let alone on any innocent bystanders who might see this.

[musingsofmaisie]

When Michael said (in the Staged part) "that sounds like a you problem" it was so Aziraphale-demanding-an-apology-dance-coded I could barely hold it together.

and the dog poop bags hanging on a chain was a pretty nice touch.

#The third season of Good Omens looks really good

#michael and david #baftas 2024 #bark ruffalo #staged

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OMG the hair slay slay slay

how can this man look amazing from every angle

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It's official. David has broken the DILF Awards. should just present it to him as a Lifetime Achievement trophy.

A BLACK KILT????

#oh my fucking goooood #david tennant #baftas 2024 #david tennant fashion icon #David tennant in a kilt #nebula jacket part 2 #joshua kane bespoke #the tennaissance

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Rewatched "Face/Off" last night. Travolta and Nic Cage playing each other. The mimicry, the precision, was great.

But it didn't come close to David as Crowley played by Aziraphale or Michael as Aziraphale playing Crowley. These two were pure genius.

This is proof they’re such amazing actors. They mimicked each other so perfectly!

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I will love this until the day I die.

The best friendship duos. Tell me I'm wrong

Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart are one of my most favorite friend duos. I am happy to see that David Tennant and Michael Sheen seem to be following close in their wake. Tell me they aren't the sweetest.

Oh, there's more...

#bromance #David tennant #Michael sheen #Patrick stewart #Ian mckellen #men who are not afraid to express their love for each other #it doesn't have to be gay....but sometimes it is #love wins

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Just wait till they get to the sobjonctif LOL

Honestly, French can go fuck itself

The Conditionnel is ridiculous! Why so many fucking verbs and rules?!

Why did I choose this fucking course?!

[musingsofmaisie]

Bonus boule

#cats #cute animals #kitty loaf