#You think he has religious trauma?

[sydneighsays]

I love him so much. He's my favorite (probably) mass murderer with Christmas tree hair ❤️❤️❤️🧚‍♀️✨💅🏼

I have even more pictures of him on my Instagram 💀💀💀 My brain is mush.

#fanart #johnny silverhand #cyberpunk 2077 #He's a true southern man with a city to burn #You think he has religious trauma? #cuz he definitely has Mommy and daddy issues

[gxlden-angels]

Bro I hate fundamentalists and culturally-fundie parents they'll say shit like "spare the rod spoil the child am I right haha yea my parents used to have to beat my ass with a switch almost everyday but I sure did learn my lesson" but like??? no you didn't??? you were hit multiple times for something you very obviously did not, in fact, learn

Like studies about how harmful even lightly spanking children is aside, you're literally contradicting yourself?? Some even admitted they got worse as they got older cause they wanted to see how far they could push their parents before they got punished

And studies not aside, you're gonna get child raising advice from the same book that tells you to stone your wife if her hymen doesn't break on your wedding night instead of the decades of research we have now?? Just say you're a bad parent and move on my guy. Skill issue

#bro I had a coworker go 'unpopular opinion I think some kids really do need beatings' and I'm like???? #unprompted???? what's going on there???? #well anyways I ended up going 'yea so I plan on specializing in play therapy with autistic children so I've been learning about talking #to children and the ways their parents and environment affects them' #and they're like hmmm but beating this kid with a stick after they broke something or I upset them to the point of yelling is good actually #had a boss say it taught him and his kids respect cause they were hard-headed #and I'm like?? that's fear not respect! they fear punishment! they do not act out of respect for you! #he's a conservative christian black man tho so he's like 'But Authority!' like bro I don't even respect you what are you on about #'You don't respect police and their authority?' Nope! I fear them! I do not respect cops and every cop/cop-adjacent person I personally know #has reinforced that for me #'We'll agree to disagree' Cool! Doesn't mean you're not wrong! I could believe trees aren't real but that is in fact incorrect #then he pulled out the bible verse and I was like ah okay I forgot you like 'here's how to treat slaves' book you're so right bestie #I'm totally wrong now and so sorry for doubting you and your 2000+ year old book I don't believe in <3 #They'd go 'well I turned out fine!' then say something that directly contradicts that #anyways I need christians to get their grubby little hands off the current state of Child Protection and Rights in the U.S. #So we can actually start working on helping kids without the force of christian hands suffocating them #cause homeschooling and child raising by evangelicals are so fucked up bro I'm tired of this shit #I'd only stay in my current state to help children get out of that cycle since I'm in the bible belt #ex christian #religious trauma #child abuse tw

[snakesinsocks2005]

I wonder if this is the last...

#do you think he has.... religious trauma🥺 #blueycapsules #blueycapsules william #william afton #my art #purple #dave miller #dave...miller? #blueycapsules dave #blueycapsules fanart #crosshatching

[thefallenangelsgang]

15 Lines Challenge

Rules: Share 15 or fewer lines of dialogue from an OC, ideally lines that capture their character/personality/vibe. Bonus points for just using the dialogue without other details about the scene, but you’re free to include those as well. @fablewritesnonsense strikes again! As always, no pressure, I just really admire these lovely folk's work: @helena-bug @just-another-wasteland-merc @roystory4 @druidgroves @heylittleriotact

(I'm going to be completely honest, I'm working of off 5 incomplete scenes if I just do BG3, so I'm also going to throw in some By Any Other Name quotes. It's technically the same character from a different story. The backstories vary a little but I'm confident the character is still there. By Any Other Name quotes are marked with an asterisk * at the end)

Wynleth Reiden

“Lathander isn’t going to strike me down if I don’t stop and kneel."

“Are you stupid?”

“Of course I’m not going to kill you!”

“And I’m still not sure you are actually what I think you are or just some freak with filed teeth and a biting kink!”

“My faith is entirely a different matter.”

“I am going to drown myself in the Chionthar.”

“It is precisely because you are a depraved beast that you get the juiciest gossip.”

“Yes, good sex!”

“I was married, he died… fifty-four years ago come Mirtul?”

“I- I think I need to be alone for a bit. I need to pray. I need to do something or I’m going to fall apart.”

“Is that why I took up the role of a garden water feature when I tried to dominate it?"

“Becoming a Paladin, beginning a life in politics, was how I could take control back. I never had a connection to Lathander like you did. I didn’t find him when I lost. He was never there for me in my darkest moments. He was forced upon me because it was expected . He inundates every single one of the worst moments in my life. Because of them .” *

"Here, every second of every day is focused on the words and what they mean and it's been like that for centuries. We are like an ouroboros. The dogma is causing us to consume ourselves.” *

"You are a soldier with faith, I am a priest sent to war. They are entirely different things.” *

"I have Saints, Martyrs, Prophets, all manner of Holy Persons in my family line. I was supposed to follow in their footsteps. But I didn’t. Not totally.” *

If you would like to see more of my writing (or some of the incomplete scenes these are pulled from) check out my tag on my account #Jericho Writes

If you are a Legends of Avantris and Edge of Midnight fan, By Any Other Name is a published oneshot about the Chapter 17 memory ritual you can find on my Ao3!

#number 4 has got to be one of my favorite lines I've ever written #It's also not subtle who she is talking to lmao #At least half of the BG3 lines are pulled from conversations with Astarion lmao #hes the only one I'm 100% confident I have the character voice down pat for #Karlach is in second place #I really need to improve on everyone else #I could probably bullshit my way through The Emperor #the additions I made to his canon lines fit pretty nicely #But I have a feeling as that scene goes on I'm gonna get lost #Anyways peep the line from the sex talk (number 8) #Astarion accuses her of never having good sex which... fair #But the girl was married for 50 years in a long distance relationship #to a sailor of all people #She might not be overly interested in sex but your lying to yourself if you think that shit wasn't wild #Almost all of the By Any Other Name lines are Wynleth arguing with Marius cause that was the conceit of the whole Oneshot for me #Them finally fighting out their differences about faith #MMMMMM Wynleth is how I deal with my religious trauma if you can't tell #tag game #legends of avantris #baldurs gate 3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #baldur's gate iii #loa #edge of midnight #eom #Jericho Writes

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

When all of your pirate mutuals succumb to the Gaimen angels derangement and you can't join in the fun because you just do not give a fuck about them 😔

#dont read the tags im being a hater if you like good omens keep scrolling im not trying to yuck your yum or whatever im just venting #its not just the christianity thing either they're literally so not compelling to me #like this is why i get offended when people compare them to Ed and Stede Ed and Stede aren't boring like that #Azeriphael and Crowley need to loosen up and commit murder or something #anyway Pepper was my favorite character in the first season i think she should be allowed to commit arson #if season 2 had been about her going to college and being annoying in sociology class and coming up with a plan to overthrow the government #i would have already watched season 2 #but its about that angel and that demon who queerbaited yall for 2 and a half decades? yawn #its like oh boo hoo you're on different sides you dont want to break the rules #theyre fuckin rules sickos Crowley way less so than Azeriphael but still #but i also like Crowley more than Azeriphael #I think Crowley would be a mediocre blorbo with a good aesthetic if his whole arc didn't revolve around an angel with religious trauma #Like the characters I enjoyed were Anathema and Pepper and Madame Tracy and Shadwell were funny if not necessarily compelling #Crowley was fine if he wasn't attached to Azeriphale but Azeriphale fell incredibly flat #he has no fucking teeth #no shade to the actor #like I wouldn't mind Azeriphale as a character if the narritive didn't constantly keep trying to get me to care about his internal conflict #because the internal conflict of not wanting to dissapoint sky daddy is not a vibe #all of that on top of my distaste for chritian aesthetics and it's just.... #it's not the show for me #anyway incredibly unsurprising to me that Zira asked Crowley to become an angel again he would be like that #yassss king try to change your boyfriend into what you want him to be. jfc I can't with his heavenly ass #I just can't care about that kind of a rules sicko the way I can't care about Izzy unless he's a problem to be overcome

[shoechoe]

It's interesting to wonder what Diavolo's relationship with religion is since he was raised by a priest and with his name and all. (Personally I like to think he became an edgy atheist because that's the funniest thing to think about)

#short posts #rambles #vento aureo #diavolo jjba #mafiosos historically were very very christian #a lot of them prayed to god before they killed and donated to the catholic church #but with diavolo... what devout christian would proudly exclaim that his name is ''devil'' #and it's easy to read possible religious trauma with diavolo's character since he has DID and you know. his priest dad named him that #it probably just wasn't considered with him but you know. #but yeah i like to think he kept the name devil just to piss off christians (only in his head. because nobody knows his name)

[heather-garland]

Love love love your art!!!! If you’re still doing request could you do something with Walter? 👀

aww thank you <3!! walter sullivan is my favourite coming of jesus

#silent hill 4 #walter sullivan #silent hill fanart #silent hill 4 the room #sh4 #idk #im so sorry this took a long time huuhghghg i hope you see it anon #whenever i dont know what colour eyes a character has i default to blue im not sure why #i think he and claudia shop at the same clothes store for people with religious trauma #its supposed to be carpet in the bottom left but i made it GREEN #tag of torture #thank you so much for the ask!

[bullagit]

i think a not-insignificant amount of the heartbreak crowley’s feeling in the end is  because he’s finally truly understanding that what’s happening with aziraphale (as he perceives it) isn’t something that he can save him from.

#good omens #good omens 2 #spoilers #good omens 2 spoilers #like if there's truth in the coffee theory that'll be a whole other thing but if its all straightforward As Perceived #i do think that tracks and i do think that clicked #and there's something very real and painful about that idk #like you can't undo an entire existence of that manipulation and abuse and how much of aziraphale's sense of self is #wrapped up in it all. being an angel being Good serving a Purpose #crowley can give love and support and patience #be a sounding board and ask questions that help aziraphale step back from things and think sometimes #but that greater disconnect and that final realization of what heaven really is. he can't do that FOR aziraphale #aziraphale has to live and experience that on his own and finally actually let himself feel that #bc i think he's very good at not letting himself think about or feel those things even after being so crushed in s1 #idk i feel a lot of religious trauma feelings about it i think it parallels that abusive relationship for a reason #like dont get me wrong the BULK of crowleys pain is from that interaction just generally and that rejection #but i think this also plays into it i think that perspective of someone who was thrown out and had the blinders removed #and having this interaction and realizing Oh. Oh there are still hooks deep into aziraphale there's this festering damage #Oh there's no amount of talk or hypotheticals that will sever the tether for him bc even after everything aziraphale BELIEVES. in heaven #as an institution. and idk man im just fascinated with that angle of it for crowley bc its like #SO complex

[rosicheeks]

Unfortunately relatable. I grew up in the church and have a lot of Christian trauma from that. I show up for special occasions for my parents… sometimes. But it’s uncomfortable from the moment I step through the door. Bigoted pastor, the self-righteousness disguising the prejudice, the political comments from the altar. Shots at young people left right and center as if the hell on earth wasn’t caused by the same older generation 90% of the congregation belongs to..

I miss being young in the choir and the youth groups and not struggling with it. It’s wild to look back at the younger version of me who was unshakeable in his faith and honestly just saddening.

I was texting my sister today about it and she said

“I 100% think ALL of us have a ton of religious trauma and everyone else in the family just doesn’t realize it cause they’re still drinking the kool-aid.”

I ran out of tag room and didn’t want to delete any 😭 seriously not lying I could write a book about all my thoughts and experiences

#I relate to all of this so much #and it’s so sad how many people truly have religious trauma #I still find myself lucky and privileged cause I know there are stories MUCH worse than mine #it’s really hard cause my parents still think I’m a Christian #honestly at this point I have no clue what i am #even if I end up still being a Christian that doesn’t help or heal all of the years of church trauma #but the hard part is still acting the part for my parents #growing up I always tried to fit into the good Christian girl mold #cause I know that’s what my parents wanted and I didn’t want to disappoint them #but once I started smoking weed and they found out? it went all downhill from there #their perfect angel fell from heaven #and I feel like ever since I haven’t been really their daughter…. I’ve just been living on the outside looking in to everything #it hurts looking back at all the years I spent brainwashed into believing that was the ONLY faith #it genuinely makes me sick to my stomach thinking about the fact that I went to a pro life rally #the thing I was talking to my sister about was how mental health was never talked about in the church #when I started dealing with it and went to my parents or the pastors or any adult really and told them what I was dealing with #wanna know what the first thing they would ALWAYS say? well have you prayed about it? the way they treated mental illness was that it was #YOUR fault cause God is punishing you for something…. that you need to pray or go to church so then God will eventually take it away #and the thing is I don’t necessarily blame my parents (which kinda sucks cause I want to blame someone) #but honestly it’s just the environment they grew up in too… like I’m 99% sure my dad has dealt with depression his entire life #but won’t get diagnosed or anything cause they always believe faith has something to do with it #which makes me incredibly sad cause I just think about how much my dad has suffered and how he didn’t need to #^^ I was typing this out when I was late to my family gathering hahaha but then I think my sister called or something so I had to stop #sorry this post is all over the place - I swear I could write a book about religious trauma #yesterday went ok surprisingly but today? TODAY is going to be so much worse #sure I’ll make a post about it later but I guessssss I should go to bed now? it’s 2am and I have to get up at 5:45 🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃 #and I have a fuuuuull day of fun Christian festivities while I’m dealing with all of this bottled up and unresolved crap from my past #please don’t get me wrong I love my parents and like I said I don’t blame them - they did their best #it just really sucks wondering what my life would have been like if I didn’t grow up in the church or in a super religious family #I wonder if when I told my parents I was depressed if they would have instantly brought me in to get help

[aroacesigma]

.

#ramblings #i love my friends . do not get me wrong . but one of them. jesus fucking christ #look hes a great guy but hes gotten like . EXTREMELY christian int he last year #i think i finally got it into his head last time but #i need christians to fucking understnad that for THOSE OF US WITH RELIGIOUS TRAUMA #WE DO NOT WANT TO HEAR 'GOD IS WITH YOU' WHENEVER WE'RE UPSET #i am a transgender man with crippling fucking undiagnosed anxiety . telling me god has a plan doesnt help god fucking hates me #i know he means well but it makes things worse frankly #i think he finally understood last time but if he says it again im gonna lose it #im glad christianity went well for him and hes a really good friend but it was soooo bad for me and i wish he could get that into his head

[bokatan]

Fallout asks 28, 33, 34 and 49 for Reed?

[ fallout OC asks ]

28. What faction(s) do they despise?

He absolutely despises the Brotherhood even though he’s in their ranks. He’s not a fan of the Institute either and would opt to wipe them out if it weren’t for some friends. As far as minor factions go- he hates the Cabot family but tolerates and works with them anyways due to companion influence. He strongly dislikes Covenant, grows to dislike Diamond City after he starts ghoulifying, and he has an odd relationship with the Children of Atom- he’s very cautious due to how extreme they are in the Commonwealth, but he’s somewhat interested in them at the same time.

33. What is their fight-or-flight response?

Typically fight, unless it’s something he knows for a fact he can’t handle, in which case he’s just gonna peace out real quick and let someone/something else deal with it.

34. What armor / clothing do they typically wear?

He has two standard outfit styles. He also pretty much always wears leather shooting gloves, a scarf if it’s cold, glasses or sunglasses, and he always has a backpack or bag of some variety. BOS: Olive drab flight suit, bomber jacket if it’s cold, partial light BOS combat armor(typically legs + chest). He has power armor, but only uses it in hostile environments because he hates wearing it and he doesn’t really trust it much. Railroad/non-faction: Some variety of casual outfit(flannel & jeans, undershirt & jeans, wasteland clothing in cold weather, etc). If it’s a heavier/cold weather outfit, he’ll also wear light painted metal armor.

49. What item(s) do they always have on their person?

Reed always has extra ammo, first aid supplies, some food & water, survival items like a lighter, rope, flashlight, utility knife, lockpicking tools, etc etc with him. He pretty much always has mentats and a pack of cigarettes on him since he’s pretty reliant on both. He’s also always going to have snacks and a ball or toy for his dog, and he tends to be a bit of a hoarder so there’s a good chance he has some little trinkets or useful scrap/junk stashed somewhere. There’s a solid 95% chance he has at least one subway token on him at any given time because he constantly picks them up even though they’re completely useless.

#thank you!💖 #ask games #Reed tag #for outfit context- Reed has a stupid mutation from cryo so cold to him is like 60°f. he’s always wearing layers #he’s my barbie oc that I use to play dress up and try out mods with so he has like. very specific set outfits now lmao #regarding the COA- he has religious trauma from childhood but also thinks postwar religions are fascinating so it’s just a weird thing #like I don’t think he’d genuinely join them but he’d have no issues listening to their beliefs #also not sure if he’d actually be very welcome given that he’s partially ghoulified but whatever

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

tfw you want to write up a proper post detailing What the Fuck about a particular thing about a character, but you're too exhausted and out of sorts to figure out the best way to format it and you'd rather make an actual concise, relatively coherent post instead of just reblogging it over and over with 'jesus fucking christ'

#LL tag #this post brought to you by adam using his intimate knowledge of a cult victim's religious trauma to shame him for being suicidal #by calling him 'a weakling' and not a real member of his race for it #after saying in his narration that it's explicitly and categorically impossible for him to be depressed because of his race #just straight up 'being suicidal is a sin and if you do it you're a filthy sinner who will go to hell' shit #because threats and other emotional manipulation aren't as effective if he doesn't care about giving up or dying #and then talks about 'leaning on him with one last question when i can see he's most vulnerable' #and the authors treating this as like mildly edgy moral dubiousness instead of a despicable thing to do #even by what should be his own goals and standards; and then having the gall to act like he's being ~compassionate and giving him a chance~ #and trying to ~change him~ by telling him.............. that there's nothing wrong with being what the cult would consider 'weak' #and then chalking it up to rex's morals being 'in his blood' (jesus fucking christ lmao) when he tries to stonewall him #is just. something. it is really fucking something #adam is a piece of work miles above and beyond what the creators intended him to be #and the things he does get called on and makes any indication of being sorry for or trying to change do not even slight make a dent #in the depths of the truly evil shit that he believes. even when he tries to kill ella he blames it on being a mogadorian #instead of taking responsibility for MAKING THAT CHOICE HIMSELF. and then ella immediately goes 'no ur fine i was rooting for u lol' #and the others' response to this is to talk about how ~it's not nature you can choose to be more like us than you think~ #instead of going 'YEAH SO. THAT WASN'T IN YOUR NATURE BUDDY. OWN THE FUCK UP' #and his idea of taking that to heart is 'awesome maybe it /is/ possible to torture them into changing. don't GAF if they suffer though' #and also he has demonstrated drooling over the idea of getting to torture other mogs to death in ways tailored to them specifically #& also says ~compassionately~ and p directly that he has hopes he'll eventually be able to torture his little sister into loving him again #anyway yeah please keep him away from rex and every other mog forever #LL crit tag #fuck off adam #dyn: but i'm helping you anyway #racism cw #torture cw #suicide cw #religious abuse cw

[infizero]

every bitch with daddy issues and religious trauma will see shadow the hedgehog and be like ohh i cant NOT project onto him

#i get the daddy issues one but what is it with the religious trauma....... #NOT an insult btw religious trauma shadow is so real. but its kinda funny how common it is ToT #ive moved on from my era in middle school and early high school where i made homophobia exist in everything and loved to explore how the #characters i liked would deal w that and get over internalized homophobia and stuff #but like. with shadow thats real i think. cause like he was MADE IN THE 50S BROTHER that guy has internalized homophobia for sure!!! #along with however many other dated/harmful forced worldviews you want to push on him. again going back to the religious trauma lol #i dont think of it as too drastic imo. more just ''he wasnt told about a lot of stuff bcuz it wasnt discussed back then'' #shadow finding out about transgenderism: holy shit #serena.txt

[jytan2018]

I read the comic in one sitting less than an hour after finishing the movie, and wow I have many Thoughts™.

- It's very obvious the two versions were meant to cater to different audiences AND tell different messages. I don't get why people are going "But the comic was better! It had more nuance!" just because Nimona was easier to root for in the movie.

- The comic was written back when ND Stevenson was still trying to process a lot of stuff, so all the characters are morally grey/straight up evil and the climactic battle is between a Ballister who regrets turning against Nimona, even if it was to save others vs. a Nimona who's too hurt to care if her lashing out was going to hurt innocent people.

- By the time Nimona got a movie adaptation, ND was a lot more secure in his sexuality, so the climactic battle was Nimona vs. the Director, the symbol of religious oppression and bigotry. It's not just about your friends turning on you because you're "too much" for them anymore, it's also about a society that would rather bring itself to the brink of ruin than coexist with you.

- (I totally get why people were upset about Ballister's surname change, though. Like come on, the media dubbing him Blackheart just to be mean was RIGHT THERE).

- Nimona's metaphor for not shifting is such a neurodivergent thing. Even in the comic, Nimona's parents insisting she's a monster who replaced their daughter is reminiscent of the changeling myth, which is what many parents thought their neurodivergent kids were—changelings who replaced their "real" children.

- Ambrosius being trained to cut off HIS BOYFRIEND'S WHOLE FUCKING ARM instead of merely disarming him is a very cop thing to do. As much as cops claim they're trained to de-escalate situations, their training still teaches them to treat everyone as a potential threat, and that level of constant vigilance can turn anyone into a trigger-happy/arm-choppy bastard. Even the Director, who can use a sword but probably hasn't actually fought someone in ages, STILL can't see Ballister reaching for the squire's phone without assuming he has a weapon.

- And on that note, the Queen getting killed simply because she was trying to reform the Institution and allow commoners to become knights? That's the best "no such thing as a good cop" metaphor I've seen. Because even if there ARE good cops and they ARE in leadership positions, the system will crush them before they make any meaningful change. It's not a good institution that turned rotten, it's an institution that only exists to spread its rot and refuses to be good.

- That's why Ballister's characterisation is so different in the movie vs. the comic. Comic Ballister had 15 years to come to terms with his trauma and the Institution's evildoing, while Movie Ballister is still freshly traumatised and hasn't found a way to define himself beyond the role he was assigned by the Institution.

- Not to mention Comic Ambrosius was not very noble to begin with and genuinely believed Ballister was better suited to villainy than heroism, while Movie Ambrosius never wanted the glory that came with his lineage in the first place and only antagonised Ballister because of indoctrination he needed to unlearn (which he did, all by himself, after witnessing the lengths the Director will go to just to kill Nimona).

- It really shows how important it is to surround yourself with loved ones who are open to change. Comic Ambrosius can love Ballister all he wants, but he'll still blast his arm off because he thinks Ballister deserved it anyway. Movie Ambrosius will stop to question what "the right thing" even means, even if he didn't love Ballister enough to defend him unconditionally.

I have so many more thoughts bubbling beneath the surface, but I'll probably address them some other day. In conclusion:

[ID: A pink-haired Nimona grinning evilly while holding up a knife.]

Watch Nimona. This is not a request.

Edit: Added more thoughts!

#nimona #nimona meta #nimona comic #ballister blackheart #ballister boldheart #ambrosius goldenloin

[inhonoredglory]

Aziraphale’s Choice, the Job Connection, and Michael Sheen’s Morality

Update: Michael Sheen liked this post on Twitter, so I'm fairly certain there is a lot of validity to it.

I’ve had time to process Aziraphale’s choice at the end of Season 2. And I think only blaming the religious trauma misses something important in Aziraphale’s character. I think what happened was also Aziraphale’s own conscious choice––as a growth from his trauma, in fact. Hear me out.

Since November 2022 I’ve been haunted by something Michael Sheen said at the MCM London Comic Con. At the Q&A, someone asked him about which fantasy creature he enjoyed playing most and Michael (bless him, truly) veered on a tangent about angels and goodness and how, specifically,

We as a society tend to sort of undervalue goodness. It’s sort of seen as sort of somehow weak and a bit nimby and “oh it’s nice.” And I think to be good takes enormous reserves of courage and stamina. I mean, you have to look the dark in the face to be truly good and to be truly of the light…. The idea that goodness is somehow lesser and less interesting and not as kind of muscular and as passionate and as fierce as evil somehow and darkness, I think is nonsense. The idea of being able to portray an angel, a being of love. I love seeing the things people have put online about angels being ferocious creatures, and I love that. I think that’s a really good representation of what goodness can be, what it should be, I suppose.

I was looking forward to BAMF!Aziraphale all season long, and I think that’s what we got in the end. Remember Neil said that the Job minisode was important for Aziraphale’s story. Remember how Aziraphale sat on that rock and reconciled to himself that he MUST go to Hell, because he lied and thwarted the will of God. He believed that––truly, honestly, with the faith of a child, but the bravery of a soldier.

Aziraphale, a being of love with more goodness than all of Heaven combined, believed he needed to walk through the Gates of Hell because it was the Right Thing to do. (Like Job, he didn’t understand his sin but believed he needed to sacrifice his happiness to do the Right Thing.)

That’s why we saw Aziraphale as a soldier this season: the bookshop battle, the halo. But yes, the ending as well.

Because Aziraphale never wanted to go to Heaven, and he never wanted to go there without Crowley.

But it was Crowley who taught him that he could, even SHOULD, act when his moral heart told him something was wrong. While Crowley was willing to run away and let the world burn, it was Aziraphale (in that bandstand at the end of the world) who stood his ground and said No. We can make a difference. We can save everyone.

And Aziraphale knew he could not give up the ace up his sleeve (his position as an angel) to talk to God and make them see the truth in his heart.

I was messed up by Ineffable Bureaucracy (Boxfly) getting their happy ending when our Ineffable Husbands didn’t, but I see now that them running away served to prove something to Aziraphale. (And I am fully convinced that Gabriel and Beelzebub saw the example of the Ineffables at the Not-pocalypse and took inspiration from them for choosing to ditch their respective sides)

But my point is that Aziraphale saw them, and in some ways, they looked like him and Crowley. And he saw how Gabriel, the biggest bully in Heaven, was also like him in a way (a being capable of love) and also just a child when he wasn’t influenced by the poison of Heaven. Muriel, too, wasn’t a bad person. The Metatron also seemed to have grown more flexible with his morality (from Aziraphale's perspective). Like Earth, Heaven was shades of (light?) gray.

Aziraphale is too good an angel not to believe in hope. Or forgiveness (something he’s very good at it).

Aziraphale has been scarred by Heaven all his life. But with the cracks in Heaven’s armor (cracks he and Crowley helped create), Aziraphale is seeing something else. A chance to change them. They did terrible things to him, but he is better than them, and because of Crowley, he feels ready to face them.

(Will it work? Can Heaven change, institutionally? Probably not, but I can't blame Aziraphale for trying.)

At the cafe, the Metatron said something big was coming in the Great Plan. Aziraphale knows how trapped he had felt when he didn’t have God’s ear the first time something huge happened in the Big Plan. He can’t take a chance again to risk the world by not having a foot in the door of Heaven. That’s why we saw individual human deaths (or the threat of death) so much more this season: Elspeth, Wee Morag, Job’s children, the 1940s magician. Aziraphale almost killed a child when he couldn’t get through to God, and he’s not going through that again.

“We could make a difference.” We could save everyone.

Remember what Michael Sheen said about courage and doing good––and having to “look the dark in the face to be truly good.” That’s what happened when Aziraphale was willing to go to Hell for his actions. That’s what happened when he decided he had to go to Heaven, where he had been abused and belittled and made to feel small. He decided to willingly go into the Lion’s Den, to face his abusers and his anxiety, to make them better so that they would not try to destroy the world again.

Him, just one angel. He needed Crowley to be there with him, to help him be brave, to ask the questions that Heaven needed to hear, to tell them God was wrong. Crowley is the inspiration that drives Aziraphale’s change, Crowley is the engine that fuels Aziraphale’s courage.

But then Crowley tells him that going to Heaven is stupid. That they don’t need Heaven. And he’s right. Aziraphale knows he’s right.

Aziraphale doesn’t need Heaven; Heaven needs him. They just don’t know how much they need him, or how much humanity needs him there, too. (If everyone who ran for office was corrupt, how can the system change?)

Terry Pratchett (in the Discworld book, Small Gods) is scathing of God, organized religion, and the corrupt people religion empowers, but he is sympathetic to the individual who has real, pure faith and a good heart. In fact, the everyman protagonist of Small Gods is a better person than the god he serves, and in the end, he ends up changing the church to be better, more open-minded, and more humanist than god could ever do alone.

Aziraphale is willing to go to the darkest places to do the Right Thing, and Heaven is no exception. When Crowley says that Heaven is toxic, that’s exactly why Aziraphale knows he needs to go there. “You’re exactly is different from my exactly.”

____

In the aftermath of Trump's election in the US, Brexit happened in 2018. Michael Sheen felt compelled to figure out what was going on in his country after this shock. But he was living in Los Angeles with Sarah Silverman at the time, and she also wanted to become more politically active in the US.

Sheen: “I felt a responsibility to do something, but it [meant] coming back [to Britain] – which was difficult for us, because we were very important to each other. But we both acknowledge that each of us had to do what we needed to do.” In the end, they split up and Michael moved back to the UK.

Sometimes doing the Right Thing means sacrificing your own happiness. Sometimes it means going to Hell. Sometimes it means going to Heaven. Sometimes it means losing a relationship.

And that’s why what happened in the end was so difficult for Aziraphale. Because he loves Crowley desperately. He wants to be together. He wanted that kiss for thousands of years. He knows that taking command of Heaven means they would never again have to bow to the demands of a God they couldn’t understand, or run from a Hell who still came after them. They could change the rules of the game.

And he’s still going to do that. But it hurts him that he has to do that alone.

#good omens #good omens 2 #ineffable husbands #it's kinda like capt america: civil war #with Azi as Tony Stark: traumatized and trying to do the right thing #and Crowley being Steve Rogers: fuck the establishment let's go rogue #gos2spoilers #good omens meta #good omens 2 meta #go s2 #michael sheen #go s2 meta #go meta #*mine #*mymeta #ineffables husbands #ineffable soulmates #*mybest

[boxingcleverrr]

Popular Hades & Persephone "retellings" are, rightly, getting dunked on all over the socials right now and, as a Pagan who has an altar to the Queen, I could not be happier. But also, I feel like a lot of people miss WHY they're bad - aside from just plain bad writing and lazy tropes. Which are, yeah, also REALLY bad.

Pretty much all retellings try to wave away, or excuse, or twist the whole kidnapping bit. And I actually do have sympathy and understanding for why, when speaking from a modern perspective.

But honestly...you gotta get over it. There are other stories to play fix-it with, not this one.

The Abduction is The Thing.

Were I a little more sober I could bring up chapter and verse of the Hymn to Demeter but frankly, if you know even the middle school mythology curriculum version of the story, you SHOULD know the themes. The story of Persephone was one mothers and daughters in the ancient world held dear, because it was a reality: you will, one day, be swept away from your home to go cleave to a man you most likely know nothing about. You will miss your mother, but chances are very good that he will be a good husband, once you get to know him, certainly better than Zeus or Ares, and he will make you a queen of his home.

Leaving home to marry was often scary, and violent (look up the history of the tradition of Bridesmaids, if you don't already know it - they were originally decoys on the marriage road). Centuries later we'd have tales like Beauty & The Beast serving the same function: comfort, hope, you are leaving your safe loving home to figure life out with a (often older, powerful) stranger. Your trauma over this sudden ending of your childhood made manifest in a Beast, or a God of The Underworld.

It's wonderful that we don't NEED stories like this anymore to comfort us (here, at least, in this culture). But if you try to force them into modern vernacular it just will not work, not really, because you're gutting out the whole point just to have a more tidy romantic male hero.

I have read MANY very good ...novelizations? fanfic(? however you would frame them, but they're certainly not "retellings"), etc. that simply take advantage of the blank spaces in the myth, and there are many!

It's not explicit that sexual assault happens - "The Rape of Persephone" as a title was coined in much earlier eras, when the word was just as often used to simply refer to abduction.

"She was starving!" the gods didn't need to eat. So it's easy to read her eating the Pom seeds as a deliberate choice on her part. Like, shit, people, scholars have written whole papers on the symbolism of this moment, between marriage rites and even yeah, Seph choosing both worlds with her husband's knowing consent.

And that, I think, is the real heart of the thing. People want an utterly mundane, spelled-out story here, as opposed to what it really is, has always been, just like any other myth or religious parable: IT'S A METAPHOOOOOOR.

They don't need to be destined, or meet at a goddamned BALL and then CONSPIRE to fake her kidnapping, or shit, I once saw one where Hades got MIND CONTROLLED by Zeus?! Jesus.

Persephone was yoinked into the Underworld against her will.

That's how it went.

I don't mean this in a "stay out of my belief system!" way, shit I'm a white American chick with delusions of witchery. I mean this in a "stop stressing yourself out trying to make things palatable" way:

This is a very real, very precious myth to many people, BECAUSE for at least that one event, Persephone had no autonomy, BECAUSE for thousands of years most women had no autonomy. Erasing that, sanitizing the fact that a girl is ripped out of the spring, from her mother's arms, is erasing the thing that gave comfort to women for centuries. And people can and should still find power and healing in it now!

Fill in the blanks the story leaves in whatever manner seems fit to you, there's plenty of room, but. Come the fuck on.

#blathering #truly had a ramble bubbling for weeks #just pagan things