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#i mean i still gonna read this shit
fiddleabout · 5 months
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TRICK OR TREAT! :D
seems like everyone i know who's getting this is posting fic snippets so uhhh okay here you go:
Ava's life ends with a fire, and with a dark sky, and with the world collapsing around her.
She crashes onto a rock, stumbling legs barely making the jump, and falls entirely onto her face.  Her whole body thrums with pain, with a loss that feels like peace, with the understanding that they succeeded, they saved the world, they saved everyone.
Beatrice lands at her side, inelegant and crumpling, filthy with volcanic ash ash and the grime of keeping them both upright after so long, from hauling Ava up the mountain when the ring had worn down the last of her strength.  She’s bleeding from a gash just over her temple, hands and knees blistered from the superheated rocks she’d landed on to drag Ava back from the edge, back from her own failure.
They saved the world, but not for them.  They saved the world, but only for everyone else.  There’s no ring left, no Sauron. No destiny anymore, no future, no journey home to a realm and a throne and a people that have been waiting generations for her to find her way to them.  Just Ava and Beatrice, here alone at the end like it had for so long been just Ava and Beatrice, a lost heir and a discarded outcast, alone together at the beginning.
Ava curls onto her side, her breaking body resisting the effort, until she can bury her head in Beatrice’s neck and drop her hand onto the ragged worn shirt covering Beatrice’s stomach, armor long lost.  There’s always been a familiar scent to Beatrice, constant as her steady heartbeat, warm and clean.  Now, though, as the world ends around them, ash settling light on them and lava creeping closer and closer, Beatrice smells like blood and sweat and exhaustion.
Distantly, the tower crumbles, a shockwave that shudders the mountain and the fading ache of Ava's pulse as she finally, finally, lets herself rest. Closer, a hand curls along the back of Ava’s neck, up into her hair, and a small choked noise escapes into the side of Beatrice’s neck.
“I’m glad you’re here with me,” Ava says, because even here, even now, with the world ending around them and no way out, she still can’t put proper words to it.  Ava’s spent her whole life running, running from her name and her blood and her birthright, from her duty and her future and her people, from Beatrice.  “Here, at the end of all things.”
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killjoy-prince · 4 months
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After 10+ Long Rests to clear out any event that can override this one and another Duke rescue later, I finally got Wyll's last romance scene
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babblingeccentric · 7 months
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Zoro knows what transgender is because he drunkenly lets drag queens and butches try to explain gender to him in gay bars and at parties
Sanji knows what transgender is because the brave citizens of the Kamabaka Kingdom forcibly educated him
Luffy does not know what transgender is because he thought you would grow a dick when you hit puberty if you wanted to be a boy (what sabo and ace told him when they were nine) and assumed tits worked the same way
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youkeepitslow · 9 days
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i finally made an account on ao3 and YOU'RE TELLING ME THERE'S MORE FOALS FICS????????????????????????????????????
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iceeericeee · 4 months
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I wonder how many tags i can add on to this
#there must be SOME kind of a limit otherwise posts would get suuuuuuper duper long like is it just 30?#idk but i'm going to find out by simply maxxing out the character limit for each tag and finding out the limit of tags for each post lololo#this is gonna be great. i just have to remember to type without ever using the comma. it shouldn't be too hard right? fuck i almost typed#the comma i'm already bad at this smh my head. also if your still here i commend you. you have a better attention span than i do.#i'm already starting to get bored holy shit this is not happening. i gotta power through this. FOR SCIENCEEEEEEEEEE. or somethinggggggggggg#but fr idk what else to say. maybe just saying that i don't know what to say will be good enough? but does that even count?#I don't even know anymore. ffffffffuck. this is gonna be a while huh? also holy shit if you're still here omg u deserve like. a prize or#something because u definitely didn't have to stay and read all of this bull shit. lololol i typed out bs but decided to just spell the who#thing out just to make it go by faster. i'm so lazy. this is only the nineth tag HOW will i make it to 30. i am sobbing the adhd is adhding#very hard rn. are you still here? bruh this is insane. i have somehow managed to keep ur attention this long and it's just me spouting#absolute balderdash. wait do you know what balderdash even means? i don't care if you do already i'm gonna tell you anyway. balderdash is#basically just another word for nonsense. boom. you learned something new today. balderdash equals nonsense equals this damn post.#why did i decide to do this in the first place. it was a dumb idea. i don't know if i can even keep going. this is only the *counts tags*#it's the 14th tag. we've got a long way to go boys. men. soldiers. comrads. friends. besties peeps. marshmallows.#where was i going with this? oh yeah. trying to max out the limit for tags. dang i almost typed a comma there. i haven't done that since#i think the third or fourth tag. dang that feels like such a long time ago. not for you guys probably. it feels longer because i have to li#type it all out and stuff. so it's definitely gonna feel longer for me. are you still here? good lord don't you have better things to#be doing than reading all of this? we're already on tag number 18. it feels like i should be on the thirtyeth by now. or however it's spell#'toast' you might be wondering 'why are you typing out the names of the numbers instead of say '9' or '5'?' well you see. young one.#this is a strategy i'm using to make each tag slightly longer. even if i don't know how to spell it. it'll make it just a little bit longer#anyway. i got off topic. not that there was ever a topic to begin with. unless it's about making this as long as i can.#which i am apparently good at doing. i guess. are you STILL here? do you seriously have nothing to do? i guess i'm flattered you stayed thi#whole time. instead of reading something else you stayed here. with me. listening to me talk. on the twenty-third tag. oh yeah its tag 23#except now it's tag twenty-four. how crazy is that. this little talk is almost over. only 6 tags away if memory serves right. this's strang#i kind of don't want this to end. but i know it should. after all there is a limit. but all things must come to and end at some point i gue#i'm running out of things to say. it's probably a good thing it's almost over. hahahahah............... but i don't want to go. i don't wan#to leave this post. i've worked so hard on it. and for what. just for it to end. are you still here? yes? good. i'd hate to end this alone.#thank you for indulging me and my craziness. the end is only 2 tags away now. you can go ahead and leave. i'll be okay on my own. really...#...you're still here? i- i don't know what to say. i suppose a toast is in order. perhaps. for this journey. this stupid dumb post i though#would be fun. i'll make it short. it's the last tag after all. this was fun. but i will never do it again. so long as a i live. i'll miss y
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punkshitposts · 9 months
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something I think is actually hilarious is that if you go left enough you start having more stances in common with (individual) conservatives, and if you go right enough you start agreeing with (individual) leftists. like i have a pretty close friend who's self described as "just far enough right that I hate politicians" , whom I hard disagree with his overarching political stances. but the finer details of it... yeah we agree with each other. gun control/gun rights opinions taxation opinions pro-small government opinions slight separatist opinions anti two party opinions anti-corporation opinion ect ect ect.
we stand on opposite sides of a standard political compass but I genuinely think if I were to count stats, I'd agree with as many of his stances as I would a liberals/democrats stances. my hs gov teacher described the difference in right vs left to us as "everyone's goal here is the betterment of mankind, they just think the best ways to do it are different" and that's literally the best way, to me, to describe what the difference in right vs left is regarding anarchism specifically. we got ESSENTIALLY the same opinion but the ways we think are the best ways to go about enacting said opinion are what makes us different. and something abt that is really painfully funny to me. envisioning a world where an-something is the major world thing, not capitalism.... and there's STILL right vs left... but The Anarchist Versions. christ.
sorry for the book i wrote in the tags. ignore typos I am NOT retyping any of that to fix them xoxo
#this is a controversial post to post here ik. however i think can we all agree that echo chambers and bubbles aren't... good.#and i think something that gets forgotten a lot by leftists is that there ARE anarchists on the right#yes we are EXTREMELY different but its important to like. remember that should The revolution come in our lifetimes their still gonna exist#and political disagreement on an individual scale CAN and SHOULD be civil so long as neither party is coming from a bigoted stance.#as in.. no i dont agree with a good chuck of what his stances but by disagree i just think hes wrong abt economics bros not like. a bigot.#in this same vain i also think (myself included) people shouldn't conflate conservativism with racists and homophobes. t#theres proud gay conservatives and conservatives who are poc... erasing those people means we cannot know of how the other side works.#i genuinely believe that if i were to go read every political theory book on right leaning politics id fine something uniquely republican#/right/whatever that i would agree with and then adapt into my own politics. im sure at least one of the unique-to-the-right stances has#actually standing and isn't a load of shit (again probably something economic rather than social).#and thats not a bad thing and if you think it is a actually don't know how to explain it to you! we MUST critically but civilly interact#with political opinions mirroring our own to 1 understand other people 2 fully understand and develope our own stances and why we have em#i genuinely find political conversations with that friend extremely enlightening even if we both walk away still set in unchanged opinions.#because it means i understand WHY others drift to those options but more importantly why /i/ drifted to my own
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arsonist-chicken · 1 month
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I think my university should pay me for emotional damages for having to write a thesis exposé. To the amount of whatever I need to go on a short trip to Helsinki to recharge from this bs and to get a tattoo and a coffin full of Fazer chocolates.
#i've been in the library since 6pm or so and have not gotten a single letter done#because i genuinely Do Not Know what to write about this#i don't WANT to write a thesis; having to write a thesis will be my last straw to a break-down if that terminography seminar doesn't do it#and i don't get the point of a thesis anyway. no one but me and my advisor and maybe two examinors will read it#i'll not bring forth any important new knowledge to use#even if i did magically discover some groundbreaking new way to teach second languages - which is not the focus of my paper#like i wanted because the head of institute said no - it would still mean nothing because no one's gonna read it anyway#i'm literally just some rando with subpar grades and papers and motivation and dedication to my studies except for the classes i like#and feel like i'm actually learning something important#which is another point: I'm studying translation and interpreting. I'll do a final translation exam in both language directions.#why is that not enough for a degree? it's literally what I study. i couldn't give less of a shit about scientific theories about translatio#yes you should hear about them sometime and it can be useful. but i don't give a single fuck about research etc.#i want to translate and subtitle and maybe at some point interpret. and add a second language besides english because well#the job market but also very importantly my own interests#can't take the swedish course because it interferes with another class; can take a ukrainian class but it's very low-level#can't take a polish or bosnian or serbian or croatian class because they only have higher levels right now#could take a chinese or japanese class but it's... a lecture? with 40+ people in it? how are you supposed to learn a language from a lectur#tried a portuguese class once but the teacher was absolutely awful. nice but so bad at teaching.#and every now and then i think maybe i should learn how to teach a language to someone because oh my GOD would i love to help people#coming here to learn german in ways they'll actually use and see them improve and help them be excited about learning!#or go somewhere else and teach german maybe while also learning the language of the country i'm in#and i thought maybe writing a thesis about second language acquisition and teaching would be a nice way to find out how interested#i am in that actually. but no. my topic now is... hold on. hmmm.#man i'M not even sure. i submitted something and my advisor wrote me an email with a different suggestion for the title#and idk what i'm supposed to write about. not saying the depression isn't playing a role too but damn am i not excited about this#which is. a great start to writing a thesis when 90% of your work ethic comes from being excited about something or interested init#'The preparation of translation-oriented language competence at school using the example of English lessons at Austrian High Schools'#ah yes. someone help me write an exposé about that.#i don't know how and what to include and I don't want to either#come onnnnnn two days ago being at the library helped at least a little bit but now i've been here 3+ hours and i've got nothing
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da-proti-toku-grem · 4 months
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Okay so, remember that post I made saying that I was probably not going to go to the Madrid concert even though I still have the tickets? Well, the thing is my dad won't stop telling me (and my brother who's coming with me) a lot of reasons why we "can't" go, so we're still trying to convince him to let us go (yeah, it is tomorrow and, if we go, we still don't know how we'll get there (I live very far away from Madrid) and where we'll stay), and right when I was about to tell him to let us both go alone by train, we saw this in the news:
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Translation: The third derailment in less than three weeks of a Cercanías train in Madrid causes delays and incidents in Atocha
(Atocha is Madrid's train station btw)
So... yeah I think I'm not going to go to the concert :/
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3416 · 5 months
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love this tweet as if we don't have a winning record rn on the backs of our star players and woll actually
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no1ryomafan · 5 months
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Whenever I think back to the very obvious fact in canon Ryoma basically becomes one with a god machine in most of the canons he’s in, it’s probably not a shock that while I would’ve never saw this coming, that a character I like experiences such a weird fate given the fucks I was obsessed with prior to him turned into THESE:
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Not even mad about this btw even if it’s weird but wondering if Ryoma’s case is better or worse then being a floating toku device lmao.
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radelenagreco · 3 months
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i'm #newtoradblr i've spent so much time these past two weeks scrolling through radfem blogs i knew i had to make an actual radfem side of tumblr blog for my own sanity. the way i "peaked" is kinda funny 3-4 months ago i liked a radfem post without realizing and all of a sudden i had other radfem posts recommended to me by the algorithm and i was so annoyed because i was very anti-terf etc but for a couple days i read through a bunch of radfem blogs and it was actually such a relief to encounter FEMINISM not some watered down version of it but i felt guilty due to 5+ years of conditioning (and also because i had a nonbinary friend sitting right next to me in class as i was doing this) and i also didn't like the prominent use of the word moid? but anyway, 3 months later, i'm not sure why but the mra nature of the trans movement has grown so much more apparent to me i have like three mutuals who are trans men on my other blog and i would find myself rereading the few feminist posts i would reblog/write because these people are literally reblogging shit like "don't think like a terf. men aren't your oppressors, they're your friends/neighbors/brothers/fathers. if you think that any man could harm you you have been fooled by terf rhetoric" like actual morons/meninists. anyway two weeks ago i saw a post made by someone i knew was a radfem on my twitter tl and i don't know why i knew i was ready i went through her blog and through many others and now here i am.
#still dislike the word moid i know it's in response to 4chan people saying shit like femoid but it reads too much like a racist slur for me#to be cool with people saying it#i don't mean it reads like a racist slur towards men i mean it's way too reminiscent of the word negroid#it really made me think people were right about radical feminism being a gateway to being a conservative because...it literally feels#racist to me lmao i don't think i'll ever like it#gonna go follow the few blogs i followed on my main + others now#and i was actually always pretty radical in my feminism i was never what one would call a libfem i just wasn't A RadFem because i was into#the whole trans thing#it's different when you're not on tumblr/not exclusively interacting with trans people on the internet. people taking such an issue with#feminism and claiming that its most basic aspects (men oppress women) are transphobic and terf rhetoric is really only a thing on tumblr#and in those circles it's especially different when you're not talking in english#and i'm pretty sure everyone i follow on twitter supports trans people but the mra nature of trans right activism just has not hit them the#way it has hit tumblr they're still very normal about feminism it's actually so nice to go there and say i hate men with no caveat#the only people who would bother me if they came across my tweets saying that would be: cis men misogynists and people on the far right in#general#crazy that on tumblr it's the most leftist people i'd have to worry about hahaha...#ipost
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magnusthepuppet · 6 months
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i cant even say anything about the new episodes because i can barely form coherent thoughts right now. talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique, never been done before—
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pepperpixel · 6 months
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Hello! I watched your speedpaints on repeat when I was in middle school (like 6 years ago) and sometimes still go back and watch them for the sake of nostalgia and good music. I just wanted to let you know you’ve touched my life and left a print, thank you 🤍
Thank you. So so much. For sending me this??? The me who made all those youtube videos. Doesn’t exist anymore. Life got harder. In so many new and horrible ways. And that like. Spark to create kinda died. And also I had more important shit to worry about all of a sudden. But. Knowing that it left on impact on someone enough to send me a message. Years after I’ve stopped making them tho. Idk.. that means something.. I appreciate you didn’t forget about me! (/my videos lol. I kno u don’t kno me. My vids and art feel a bit like. An extension of me tho? In a way. But I kno that it’s not a 1:1 thing. My art an videos express thoughts ideas and feelings of mine. But they are not. Me. Just lil slivers of me.. Tiny lil portions from specific moments in time.)
Sometimes it feels like those videos were just a flash in the pan. A brief moment of attention and fame I didn’t grab onto hard enough… and now the moments long gone. but. I didn’t rlly want to grab onto it, I just wanted to make fun videos. And show off my music taste lol. And express. The music videos my brain would create in my head into the real world. And then I got too busy w real life kicking my ass. (Ps. life has now stopped kicking my ass!! It’s gotten better. Just. Not the same as it was before) Maybe I’ll get back into it one day. If I have any new ideas. Once I get stable and know what I’m doing. And get like an iPad or something so I don’t have to wrangle w my laptop lol. But yeah!!! Srry.. I’m rambling a lot.. this message just made me emotional ok! I’m being openly vulnerable in turn hopefully that’s not too weird lol. I’m happy my videos had an impact on your life!! That means. A fucking ton. Like. Words cannot properly express the weird happy feeling that gives me in my heart. Thank you so much!! For real!!! Srry for getting all in depth about my life again this message just!!! Struck an introspective chord w me!!!
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applestorms · 6 months
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morality in the world of good omens
so i wrote another (admittedly very messy) essay on good omens not long ago right after watching season 2 but after finishing that, rewatching all of both seasons multiple times, and reading through the book, i have a couple more distinct ideas to get out...somewhere...if only for my own sanity. this is me throwing my thoughts into the internet before i pop, if you will. just 3 sections, below the cut.
1. environment, characters, & transformative fandom creations
to start this post off a bit more broadly, i've been thinking a lot recently about transformative fandom and the reasons why we write fanfiction/create semi-original works in the first place, as well as why certain aspects of fandom (writing, art, analysis, etc.) will be more appealing to me for certain shows/series than others. correct me if you have a totally different view of this, but in my experience i've found that i tend to naturally gravitate towards different parts of fandom depending on what the original medium of the story was- podcasts tend to lead to some of the most interesting art trends, for example, since there's more room for interpretation and character design tends to be more of an ongoing community project than something set in stone like for a tv show with live human actors.
in my own observation, i've noticed that a lot of the really big & excitable fandoms, the ones that generate tons & tons of fanworks more naturally (a.k.a. just because of the story itself & not other factors like a pre-existing franchise or hype about new great gay representation, etc.) tend to surround stories that fall into a kind of "sweet spot" that makes the creation of fanworks really appealing. if you've ever wondered why there are so many ravenous artists bending over backwards to draw gorgeous fanart for stuff like homestuck or south park or even minecraft youtubers, it's likely because those stories all fall into a sweet spot for drawing, with character designs that are recognizable at a glance and yet still simple enough that there is plenty of room for personal creative touches. (think also, if you're familiar with such kinds of homestuck terms: hyperflexible mythologies, A4:1524, and/or this archive link cause the official thing is down now for some reason)
the conclusion i've come to is thus that even something as basic as the original medium of a story can dictate a lot about what kinds of fan activities are more common or popular within said story's fandom.
so, back to good omens- for me, this all relates back because of a question i've been messing with in my head recently, about why i've been less interested in fanfiction for good omens than i have been for the last few fandoms i've been, almost all of which have basically broken my ao3 bookmarks.
this question has been fucking with me for a while now, largely because i'm not entirely sure what's motivating it. a lot of times i can figure out pretty easily why i might personally not be interested in some parts of fandom, but that's not really the case here. from what i've seen this fandom seems to be pretty mixed in terms of age, & the writing that i have read is certainly no worse than i've seen elsewhere, perhaps even better in some places- and yet, i can't seem to get entirely into it, even getting frustrated as i can't find something to my tastes for an ao3 bedtime story as i've grown so accustomed. what caught me off guard is that this was an issue that i ran into while watching season 1 as well, back when the series was still quite popular but not blowing up like it is right now.
a lot of this may seem like (and likely is, at least in part) basic overthinking, but i mentioned it all here because the answer i eventually came to is reminiscent of my previous reflections above on the nature of fandom & how/why fanworks are created.
a couple paragraphs above, i used the example of art as an example of how fandoms that generate a lot of original artwork will often do the most when the original story falls into a sweet spot of character design, but notably i think that this sentiment applies to a lot more than just art. if you've ever seen the copious amounts of kpop & hockey rpf fanfiction that lives on ao3, it should be clear that this applies to writing too.
i wrote this essay a while back responding to an observation about the lack of a more extensive symbolic language in fanfiction & i've toyed around with the idea more since, particularly in considering the question of why a lot of what we see as the staples of fanfiction exist in the first place. in that post, my response largely revolved around an argument of why we create fanfiction- namely, that fanfiction is created as in tandem with deeper analysis of the original story/series, as a way of trying to practically apply character analysis to a new context.
the key part of that last sentence to me is how a lot of this revolves around character analysis (and shipping, but really it's the characters that motivate the shipping in most cases so. same difference).
i tend to instinctively separate fanfiction into two separate categories: fanfiction that is based out of the original world/canon of the story (including but not limited to fix-its, deeper analysis fics that take a scene & extrapolate from it, continuations, etc.) and fanfiction that takes the characters from the original story & plops them in an alternate universe/AU. while i separate these out as two distinct categories of fanfiction, i should also clarify that i don't think these two groups are necessarily equal in terms of number of fics- rather, the vast majority of fanfiction tends to be AUs, keeping the original characters & changing any & all aspects of the world around them. again, this may vary depending on the story & Vibe of the fandom at the time, stories like game of thrones or harry potter or homestuck might have a lot more in the canon category by nature of any major dissatisfactions the fandom has with how the original story was told, but in most cases AUs are more popular. this was a lot of the basis behind my argument that fanfiction is created as character analysis in fact, since the characters are the most important part that carries over from original story to fanwork, as well as can end up being one of the most debated/scorned parts when it comes to fandom drift (i.e. "that's out of character"/"he wouldn't do that"/and all other such arguments about fanon vs. canon characterization).
basically, my conclusion in this case was that i was a lot less interested in gomens fic largely because i have a really hard time separating the characters from the world in the case of this particular story. aziraphale & crowley being an angel & a demon and dealing with all of the bullshit of their world when it comes to heaven & hell are such integral parts of their characters in my mind that i have a much harder time getting behind AU fanfiction that plops them in a totally different context. it's just a much harder sell for keeping the characters in character for me. (i also tend to not like s2 fix-its just cause, idk they're just not my style, which is where a lot of the recent blast of energy has led us.) to clarify, this is not a judgement, just a matter of personal preference and a reflection of why, even if a lot of fandoms will look the same from the outside/involve the same things like art, fic, etc., an individual's mileage can vary wildly when it comes to how they interact with different things online.
*additional note, also for clarification: i do want to acknowledge that a lot of this depends on pure popularity as well, popular fandoms will often end up with basically everything in terms of fanworks just by nature of how many people are interacting with & thinking deeply about the story. my point here is more along the lines of the fact that even within the more well-populated fandoms, certain types of fanwork will often Stick Out more to me than others, or even be visibly much more common than in other fandoms, due largely to the original medium/structure of how the story.
so, speaking of aziraphale & crowley in more depth now- why does the world of good omens feel like such an integral part of their personalities when it comes to characterization? up next, let's talk about morality within the context of good omens' perhaps surprisingly secular take on heaven & hell.
2. the amorality of heaven & hell (ft. the crowley quote apples you know the one)
(warning in advance that this section may be a bit limited since i'm not going to get super far (or very far at all, really) into the whole religious-analysis aspect of good omens.)
i've been binge-reading the original pterry & gaiman book for good omens over the last few days and it's been very fun seeing all the slight changes between the tv show & the original. you can really see the hand of the original creators in how the tv show was translated, even just by looking at which parts made it and which parts were deemed worth cutting out. i suppose having one of the original creators right there helping build everything really helps make a book -> show translation work, since the ASOUE tv series was also pretty well received- something about knowing what's the core of the series & truly important to keep in, and having more time to tell the story itself?
anyways, i have a short list of notes that i've been taking as i read, conversations that stand out to me or footnotes that particularly amused me, but i keep coming back to one line that stood out to me quite early on. in context, this line comes from crowley during the conversation where he is first attempting to fully convince aziraphale about stopping armageddon, specifically when they're talking about exerting equal forces on warlock to make him normal:
"You're saying the child isn't evil of itself?" [Aziraphale] said slowly. "Potentially evil. Potentially good, too, I suppose. Just this huge powerful potentiality, waiting to be shaped," said Crowley. He shrugged. "Anyway, why're we talking about this good and evil? They're just names for sides. We know that."
(pg. 67)
"They're just names for sides." if i had to pick one line to sum up the view on religious morality of this series, this would likely be it.
on the one hand, i tend to interpret a lot gomens' take on heaven & hell within the context of its political stance, something that is particularly obvious through a line from gabriel in s2e2 where he tries to clarify to aziraphale that heaven isn't trying to hurt job directly, but instead is just not stopping hell from doing horrible things to him. while there may be some additional nuance to add to this take within the context of british politics that i don't really know well enough to add about, i'm inclined to see this from the side of my own familiar american politics, which might hold some weight considering how long mr. gaiman's lived around here. point is, my current interpretation of that line is that it helps in more clearly establishing the analogy of heaven & hell as the story moves forward into newer seasons and thus more contemporary politics, equating heaven with mainstream liberal politics & politicians and hell with conservatives.
this stance seems to be emphasized even more in the tv show than the book which makes sense considering its been coming out more recently, and especially in season 2 which is still quite caught up in a lot of quarantine-based reflection. (the tv show puts a lot more emphasis on heaven & hell in general, actually, perhaps initially a byproduct of actually being able to see those environments in their entirety and all the angels & demons that populate them- but we'll get to that.)
the book takes a slightly different stance that, fittingly, seems more reflective of the time it came out. in particular, i was struck a lot more when reading the book by adam's rise (fall?) to power, and how much of it was motivated by a burgeoning nervousness/pessimism about climate change and the anxieties of younger generations that comes with inheriting an earth that feels so fucked up. honestly if anything it's only gotten more relevant in that respect, what with the current vibe on the internet & the hopelessness of the doomer gen z gang, but it also has a distinctly different flavor to me from the tv show, which i think is largely because it's less connected to Formal politics since again we see a whole lot less of heaven & hell as such distinct, bureaucratic entities.
instead, there is a very distinctly amoral aspect to heaven & hell that we get through lines like the one above and especially from characters like crowley. this is why i argue that good omens, despite having so many religious elements, is such a deeply secular take, especially when it comes to its ethics & morality- Good and Evil, notably with the capital letters in this case, has very little to do with actual actions and much more to do with the name that you stamp on top of said actions. heaven & hell and the angels & demons that we see directing and watching and generally fucking with aziraphale & crowley throughout the story are distinctly separate from humanity, and as we see even more as the story progresses, distinctly unaware about what it even means to be a human, in both a deeper philosophical & very basic and literal sense. Good and Evil is simply another name for the sides- and thus the true ethics is something separate, and based in a deeply human experience.
in my opinion this is also why aziraphale & crowley, lovers of humanity and also to some degree spokespersons of it from how much they've "gone native," tend to be so deeply at odds with both heaven & hell and always end up agreeing with each other over their own supposed sides. what makes aziraphale & crowley so distinctly different is that they ascribe to the same ethics & morality that humanity does, or at the very least are trying to figure out ethics & morality & How to Be a Good Person in the same horribly messy way that humans do, separating them from the black & white "this side Good & this side Bad," logic that the rest of heaven & hell instinctively ascribe to.
there's a lot of nuance here, which is also why i think there is such an emphasis on moral ambiguity (and love, but we'll get to that) throughout season 2. the story of job, grave robbing, & questionable attempts at matchmaking- aziraphale is working through a lot of Shit right now when it comes to trying to figure out what the Good thing actually fucking is, and i think it's key that a lot of that is motivated by crowley himself. crowley might'e been cast out of heaven for asking too many questions, but aziraphale is there & listening to them & giving them the serious thought they deserve, and that can't be overlooked.
sidenote: i couldn't figure out a place to shove this in, but i also wanna point out that a lot of this is tied to the idea of growing over time too. on the same page as the quote transcribed above is another line from crowley leading up to aziraphale's question that puts a lot of emphasis on the fact that warlock is going to be a product of nurture, not nature. again, this is an argument against basic black & white assigned-at-birth morality for the ability of humans to grow & change over time and be influenced by the people around them.
it's notable that despite adam's supposed origin as a Son of Satan, what really gets him to stop the apocalypse in the end is the fact that he doesn't really give a shit about all this big plans but instead just wants to hang around his friends. there's a lot of emphasis in the book placed on how beautiful & nice tadfield is as a place for a young kid to grow up, how well loved & fiercely protected it as as something beloved to adam. while he might be overwhelmed when faced with the full picture of how horrible the world can be, ultimately what he cares about is loving & taking care of the people & places that he grew up learning were precious, and the only way to do that is to keep growing & changing yourself within that world and trying to help it also grow into something better, not throw it all away just for the slightest chance that you could restart. a message worth taking the time to think about, at the absolute very least.
3. finding morality w/in humanity: crowley & aziraphale and speculation for s3
i have complicated feelings about both aziraphale & crowley throughout a lot of the show and especially in season 2. i think a lot of people, myself included, are inclined to see crowley as the voice of reason in this season, and for good reason- as i mentioned before, a lot of aziraphale's deeper questioning of the status quo and goodness (Goodness) as a whole is motivated by questions from crowley.
i kiiind of mentioned this in my previous essay, but to state it more clearly, my take on crowley is that he's arriving at the right answer for the wrong reasons, and, conversely, aziraphale is arriving at the wrong answer for... kind of also the wrong reasons but also slightly for the right reasons. let me explain.
crowley is clearly much more aware of the flaws in both heaven & hell than aziraphale is, which seems to be the basis behind a lot of his motivation in asking aziraphale so many questions in the first place. he's also, as maggie & nina point out in s2e6, deeply lonely, often running away or getting ready to fight literally anyone that isn't aziraphale (or humans, but that's a little more complicated). from his reaction to beelz & gabriel getting together, i think it's pretty clear that he still hasn't entirely given up on the whole alpha centauri idea, and it makes sense- as i said in that last essay, crowley basically won the argument at the end of the previous season when it comes to aziraphale & crowley, "making [their] own side," so he doesn't have much reason to face any of his personal fears until maggie & nina basically point out that they exist directly to his face. once they do point it out, however, he's very motivated to act & does so almost immediately, even after hearing what aziraphale has to tell him and being pretty thoroughly devastated by it.
my point here is that crowley is correct in seeing the toxicity of both heaven & hell, he's just flawed and largely motivated by fear (up for debate if that's all it is, but i certainly think it's a big part of it) in his desire to run away from it all. it's not quite armageddon, again he's going more flight > fight here, but he's still ultimately giving up and that's not a great conclusion.
on the other hand, as some others on this site have pointed out, aziraphale is certainly showing a lot of strength in his willingness to keep fighting & try to change things for the better, but it's not hard to see how that belief has been twisted. one of aziraphale's biggest flaw in motivation at this point imo is that he doesn't just believe in goodness but Goodness, the kind that's tied to heaven always being right & all actions being morally Good so long as they're done under the name of heaven, and that clearly also isn't great.
thus what i think the both of these two really need ultimately is that deeper connection to humanity, and the ethics born from humans interacting with humans. we can already see how strong these two are when they collaborate, even when they're doing their absolute best to be as subtle as possible, but what i think they need is to once again be grounded by humanity, not to get so caught up in the bullshittery of heaven & hell and Good & Evil, but once again find a goodness defined by the world that they mutually love so much and stick with it.
i keep tossing a question around in my head about whether or not aziraphale & crowley are going to end up human by the end of this series. it feels natural that they would, they're already so at home and in love with earth & around humanity, but i'm also not entirely sure if that would be a happy ending for them considering how long they've watched & loved the world as it's changed. perhaps taking this post into account is another push towards humanity as a happy ending, not running away to a cottage to get away from the world (i just can't see running away to a cottage to be together as as happy ending, sorry- it might work for beelz & gabriel but not for aziraphale & crowley), but choosing to settle down within that world that is so dear.
#'just three sections' LAFFS. YEAH#astronaut rambles#good omens#gomens#no but i like this one a lot better than the last attempt at a gomens essay#this one feels a lot cleaner. more focused?#got a bit sappy at the end but i don't mind humanity is always worth loving#also off topic but i read this really interesting paper at work the other day#about pratchett’s writing in discworld & zizek & religion#forget what it’s called now but it was an interesting take on how fiction/fantasy can allow for deeper insights/reflection of reality#got some discworld books today so looking forward to reading those once i slurp up the last hundred or so pages of good omens#also thanks to my dad for having some interesting commentary on the job interpretation in s2e2 today#i all but literally slept through sunday school so i think a lot of the more noteworthy religion takes in this show go over my head =3=‘’#man i am so very much looking forward to how season 3 continues this story#i feel like a lot of the big conclusions there are really gonna be important for the direction of the story’s main message#season 2 is just. such a transition season it’s hard to get super distinct conclusions sometimes#like it’s still going somewhere there’s shit developing#it’s not like sherlock where it just teases deeper meaning forever but gives you nothing#but. it’s just so obviously Not Over Yet and I Need More#anyways much love i need to go to bed now arghfjdkd lots of shit to do in the future but all i wanna do is keep writing gomens essays. sigh#brainrot central#oh yay my phone’s at 69% now ☺️ wheeee#good omens meta
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tchaikovskaya · 1 year
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I could/should elaborate when I’m not falling asleep as I am rn but like. I feel like for the people who you “mourn” who have died young and/or suddenly who you knew only in passing, or only casually interacted with, or were once close to but in the years between then and their death you barely spoke, etc etc etc, you arent actually mourning them or their presence in ur life (and now palpable absence) (supposedly) but just what it means to be a human on earth who has to grapple with inevitable loss and the immense weight of what a Person is and their footprint on everyone they interact with that is fleeting even tho there are several billions of us on the floating rock but none of those billions of lifetimes are ever overlapping 100%…. sigh :/
#context a student who graduated last semester (undergrad) died in a car crash like 500 miles away#and one of my fellow grad students/TAs and a few of his former profs are so upset about it and like………#u barely knew this kid I mean of course I feel terrible that someone with his life ahead of him was snuffed out in the blink of an eye#but like…….. if u had never found out about this. or if this hadn’t happened and he went on to live a boring long life#he would mean next to nothing to u !!! u would be none the wiser! u would probz not even recognize his name in 10 years! why are u crying!!!#idk I would be less ANNOYED and hashtag BOTHERED by it if the same people didnt say such nasty derogatory shit about their undergrads#like every other time I talk to u about mundane news ur complaining about how ur students are all lazy untalented idiots#but now THIS ONE who was never meaningful to u before THIS GUY is SPECIAL to u…? u mourn him?#2 weeks ago if I showed u his student ID photo u would struggle to remember his name but NOW HE MEANS SOMETHING#NOW THAT HES GONE AND IT DOESNT FUCKING MATTER ANYMORE NOW HE MEANS SOMETHING TO YOU#tldr if ur still reading lmao I feel like this stuff is always about yourself and almost never about the dead person#which is valid in its own way I mean I’ve literally cried after passing mangled cars and ambulances with people who defs aren’t gonna surviv#but it’s never been about their life’s overlap with mine and retconning some kind of memorable or emotional significance to it#idk why I’m so emotional about this in like 3 separate directions but it’s just so fucking frustrating !!!!!!! 🥲🤡
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my-thoughts-and-junk · 2 months
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my new thing is obsessing over a funny little guy for a few months before moving onto another funny little guy
#random thoughts#first it was sans undertale then it was robert dream daddy#and now it's fnaf sunandmoon#my ideal fnaf sunandmoon fic which i will never write because that's where i draw the line#is one in which yn doesn't think sun and moon are. sentient. at first.#and by at first i mean for a large chunk of the story#like yeah he's a robot! he's a very sophisticated piece of ai of course he's gonna be lifelike#sun and moon are designed to learn and adapt and they can SEEM very human but it's important to remember they are not alive#but they still treat sun and moon decently because? why wouldn't they?#like sun and moon are constantly learning ai. it's important to model proper behavior so they know how they and others should act#specifically among freddy's staff! if sunandmoon don't know how staff SHOULD behave then they have no frame of reference#for what behavior should be reported or how sunandmoon are SUPPOSED to act around staff for maximum efficiency#if you get mad at the robot for being damaged and they're designed to entertain#they're not gonna want to tell you next time they get damaged and you can't just rely on scans and weekly examinations#because scans miss things and some damage is too severe to wait for their next examination#in an ideal setting you WANT the animatronics to be able to communicate openly with you because THEY are a tool for their OWN repair#THEY can recognize what is damaged VERY WELL#and if it's a software issue then you need to be able to read their BEHAVIOR. body language and shit#and if sunandmoon are CONSTANTLY ON EDGE AROUND STAFF you're not gonna be able to see a base body language to go off of#also constant stress is bad for machines. like running the same commands over and over again until overheating. bad for babey#and of COURSE they're gonna help around the daycare!!! THE DAYCARE ATTENDANT IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE A REPLACEMENT FOR HUMAN WORKERS#the daycare attendant is a GIMMICK. a NOVELTY. a TOOL meant for the use of the human daycare attendants#a forever playmate who remembers every detail about every child under their care? who never tires and isn't affected by cleaning chemicals?#they're so USEFUL! a supplement to the human daycare attendant!#like a swiss army knife of rainy day games and orange slices#it's a horrible shame the owners of the pizzaplex got cheap and stopped hiring human daycare attendants to save on labor#because the daycare attendant works best when they have someone else's behavior to model. otherwise it gets caught in a loop#which constantly degrades and simplifies. like recording a recording over and over again until all you can hear is white noise#of COURSE something bad was gonna happen!#and sunandmoon don't really have any opinion on this besides agreeing because they ARE an animatronic.
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