Holy forking shirtballs
I'm choosing violence today. I started this on Twitter, but I'm going to finish my thoughts here like I always do.
But what really blows my mind the most is the way that people look at Aziraphale's "choice" at the end, as if he had one to fucking begin with.
I'm sorry, but Aziraphale knows how messed up Heaven is. He told The Metatron, more than once, that he did not want to go back to Heaven! We can debate what each of us means by "choice" all night because my "choice" and your "choice" might be two different concepts. He could have been strong armed by The Metatron or he could have looked at where things were headed and realized he had no choice but to intervene himself.
You need to ask yourself what Aziraphale has a moral imperative to do.
What do we owe to each other?
Seriously, if you have not watched The Good Place, I recommend you go and watch it, because it absolutely shaped how I've viewed Good Omens 2 since its release.
My levels of frustration with the bad faith mischaracterizations of Aziraphale are off the charts. If you are blaming him for everything, implying that he should have to grovel and that Crowley has a right to hurt him back, you have missed the point of Good Omens entirely.
I defend Aziraphale, but I don't think one of them is more right or wrong than the other. They're equals. They're a group of the two of them, acting and reacting to each other throughout history. They're Alpha Centauri.
I cannot even begin to explain how fucking devastated I felt when Crowley said these words, knowing he was fighting a losing battle. What he said took a lot of courage because he's finally admitting something they've both been too scared to publicly define for 6,000 years. Crowley has had to spend so long with a rough outer shell because he fell and had to hide all of his softness.
The look on his face was one of pure joy when he created that nebula, but I think the fact that he got to share that moment with Aziraphale is what has always stuck with him.
So yeah, seeing Crowley with a broken heart at the end of "Every Day" was sad for me as well.
My brain still lives here!!
But Neil has said that Good Omens 3 is not quiet, gentle, or romantic. I imagine it's going to be more like the the first season in which they are not central to the plot. GO2 will help us make sense of how they ended up where they are when we see the bigger picture with all the other major players involved with GO3.
Aziraphale was still a soldier and accidentally got himself discorporated in his own magic circle in season one. He had a platoon waiting on him to start Armageddon, and he deserted them to go save the world with Crowley instead. Aziraphale is a deserter. I need everyone to remember that. He yeeted himself out of Heaven and sought out Crowley before even locating a body just to warn him about what was happening so they could try to save the world together.
I can't help but think of 1941 and that magician who had been arrested for being a deserter.
Aziraphale disobeyed orders. That took courage but it branded him as a traitor against Heaven. They tried to destroy him for it the same way Hell tried to destroy Crowley for his part in stopping the war.
Aziraphale and Job are the only characters we have seen interacting with God directly. Aziraphale has spoken to God before and he is determined to do so again.
Aziraphale knows Heaven is flawed, but he also knows it's supposed to be good. He wants it to be good. He does not like the way the system works and he wants to make a difference. (And I'm pretty sure he's also determined to talk to God without being intercepted by The Metatron.)
Since when is that a bad thing? I don't get it. And I've had this discussion before.
If you need to change the system by burning the old one to the ground, it's still change, and we don't know what Aziraphale has planned.
It seems to me that people just want to see Aziraphale fail because it would punish him for returning to Heaven instead of running off with Crowley.
Some of y'all take everything Aziraphale says or does and twist those things into malicious anti-Crowley actions because you think the only reason Aziraphale exists is to make Crowley happy, and if he isn't thinking only about Crowley then he's doing something wrong.
Aziraphale does not exist as a plot device to further Crowley's character. They come as a pair. They've been learning from each other for 6,000 years. Crowley challenges Aziraphale just as much as Aziraphale challenges him.
You can be mad at Aziraphale all you want, but villainizing him is gross. Defending Crowley does not mean you have to tear down and mischaracterize Aziraphale anymore than defending Aziraphale means you have to tear down Crowley (but I don't see that happen on nearly the same level it happens to Aziraphale). Stop painting Aziraphale as an abusive partner, for fuck sake.
Aziraphale knows there are flaws in the system. He wants to make a difference, and since he has seen that Gabriel can change, then maybe the whole system can. He has to at least try, and if he can succeed then maybe he and Crowley can stop hiding and finally be together without having to look over their shoulders all the time.
Why is that a bad thing? He's just as protective of Crowley as Crowley is of him!
But don't forget that Aziraphale's wing was covering Adam and Eve too. As much as a wants to protect Crowley, he has a moral imperative to keep humanity safe as well.
He sent Adam and Eve into the unknown with a flaming sword so they could protect themselves.
As much as he wants to be with Crowley, there are 8 billion people on Earth heading toward the Second Coming and Judgment Day. They'll work together to fight alongside humanity in the end. Aziraphale should not have to humiliate himself just to earn Crowley's forgiveness. That's a rancid notion.
The Resurrectionist was a whole ass moral dilemma for Aziraphale, which is why I brought up The Good Place earlier, but that's a post for a different time.
Aziraphale has his own motivations and they're just as important as Crowley's, and they don't have to be chalked up to Aziraphale being the bad guy. Weird, I know, but shades of grey.
"To the world."
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You know when this all started coming to light, I fully expected that leftists would try to downplay the horrific violence by acknowledging that it was "bad and our hearts go out to the victims and their families, but......" or by making a sharp distinction between civilians and soldiers (or even like, minors and adults), but the thing that's fucked me up is that nope! We sailed right past any attempt to even pretend at human decency and cut straight to "they deserved it."
Even the kids?? Yep, even the kids.
Like Jesus H. Christ y'all.
I'm used to people feeling like they need to at least gesture vaguely in the direction of giving a shit about Jewish lives and not justifying actual terror tactics and war crimes on civilians (you'd think for consistency's sake they might care about looking like they care for the credibility but..) even if we both know they really don't actually care about antisemitism in a meaningful way. We both know that they won't be there when it actually counts, and they sure as fuck aren't going to interrogate their own personal or group's antisemitism. But usually there's a fig leaf. There's at least a baseline assumption that they should care about antisemitism and Jewish people staying alive, even if they don't actually, so they'll say the minimum amount of correct sounding words and then quickly skedaddle onto whatever it is they actually care about.
And like, is that good? No, it's not. It's not good enough. I'm sick and fucking tired of people doing juuuuuust enough to pretend to care without ever addressing the real underlying issues.
But this? This totally floored me. This drops that baseline assumption that antisemitism and murdered Jews is a bad thing entirely and blatantly sides with literal actual terrorists committing unspeakable horrors while holding it up as "liberation."
And what's worse? Most of those were the further out fringe types (although there were a horrifying amount more than I expected) right? Most everyone else wasn't spouting off about how happy they were that vive la révolucion, right? You know what was really deafening?
The silence from everyone else.
Literally everyone except for maybe one or two gentiles I remember seeing kept their mouths shut. Everyone else? Not a goddamn word about how fucked up it was that people were crowing over our people's fresh corpses. The bodies hadn't even cooled yet and we had jackasses on here publicly celebrating with memes and gore videos, and not a word from 99.9% of you.
The people who did speak up? You have no idea how much it means, and I'm grateful. Truly.
Everyone else who was too gutless, spineless, or oblivious to realize how critical a moment this was for support and/or was more interested in protecting your image or whatever?
Let's just say: duly noted.
I may continue to work alongside you (what choice do I have?) but the trust is gone.
We're clearly on our own, with rare exception.
(This is a vent post I will not be adding any caveats to it and I will be blocking anyone who tries to be an asshole. I will lock reblogs if there's any discourse. Our lives are not up for debate you sick fucks.)
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“Levi!”
You barge through the door, all dramatic, gasping and panting, purposely exaggerating to get his attention. But not to your surprise, he didn’t even bother looking up.
“I suppose no one ever taught you, but there’s a concept called knocking.” He said, his eyes fully focused on the papers. His hand moving across it as he wrote. “It’s quite easy really, you raise your hand and—”
“Levi!” You cut him off, slamming the door behind you loudly. “Levi, my beloved, my savior in dark times, I am in need of your help.”
“Slamming the door isn’t very polite either. Your manners get worse everyday.”
You waved him off, shushing him. You made way across the room, where a couch sat not far from the desk he was sitting on, and flopped down face first. “Levi.” Your voice came out muffled.
“Ah yes, making yourself home I see.” He sighs.
“Levi, I need your help. Real bad.”
“No.”
“What–” You look up, raising your face from the cushions, offended. “You didn’t even–”
“No.” He repeated, eyes not leaving his work for even a second. “Please, get off my couch. Cleaning it is tiresome.”
“Levi.” You whined, impatient at his aloofness. “Levi, he’s going to kill me.”
“I’ll buy you a good coffin.”
“This isn’t funny.” You huffed. “I’m dead. Like literally. Absolutely. This is where it all ends.”
“I’d rather you not die on my couch.”
“Fuck your couch.” You flipped yourself, so you splayed on your back now. You tilted your head, staring at him. “Help me out. Please?”
Levi finally turns to look at you, unable to ignore you any longer. He frowned. “What?” He asked warily. “What did you do this time?”
“Promise me you’ll help me first.” You said.
“No.” He immediately rejects you. “What did you do? Did you get into a fight with an MP again?”
You shook your head.
“Blew up something in Hange’s lab?” He guessed.
“No. But I’d really rather it was Hange mad at me though.”
He looked at you confused, “Who did you piss off then? “
You grimaced. He was quick to conclude.
“Ah.” He realizes. “Erwin.”
A nod from you answers him.
“What did you do?”
“Ask me what I didn’t do.”
“What didn’t you do?”
“Work.” You sat up. “In my defense, it was a shit load of work. And I hate paperwork. And I kept procrastinating. And now it’s due by tomorrow and I didn’t remember until two minutes ago when Erwin shot a glare at me. And now I—”
“I’m not helping you.”
“Why not?” You demanded.
“It’s your fault. Don’t drag me into this shit.” He grumbles, scowling. “And you promised last time, you wouldn’t do this anymore. I’m not doing your work for you. I have enough on my plate.”
“Okay first of all, I’m not lazy. I was busy–”
“Ogling Garrison captains.”
“They’re pretty. And no, not the point, shut up.” You protested. “I was busy. And I didn’t come here so you could do it for me. I came here so you could go and talk to Erwin.”
Levi frowned, “Talk to him about what?”
“Tell him to give me one more day. Swear I’d work my ass off.”
“You said that last time too.” He pointed it out. “How angry is Erwin?”
You made a face. “Bad.”
“How bad?”
“He keeps glaring at me everytime I meet him. It’s the ‘if you don’t get it done this time, you’re gonna get in so much shit’ glare. It’s creeping me out.”
Levi scoffs, shaking his head. “Only you." He said. "Only you can possibly manage piss fucking Erwin off. The guy's a fucking monk, nothing affects him.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “If I had to guess, I’d say this isn’t the first time asking for an extension.”
“Err…” You ducked your face. “It was kinda supposed to be done 2 weeks ago.”
“2 weeks?” Levo looked at you incredulously. “No wonder he’s pissed. And you’re asking for more time?”
“One more day. Just one more day. Please Levi, he’ll listen to you.”
Levi stares at your pleading expression for a few seconds with narrowed eyes, considering. Thinking. Then he seemed to have made up his mind.
“No.”
“Wha—” You jerk upright. You really thought you’d convinced him.
“No. I’m not getting you out of the grave this time. Specially since you dug it yourself.” He returns his attention back to his work. “Good luck to you, but leave now. And learn a damn lesson.”
You stared at him, gaping. “Wow," You blinked you’re an asshole.”
“Congratulations for realizing that.”
You exhaled. Easy words won’t work, you knew. So, here comes plan A. Acting.
You pouted.
“Don’t look at me like that. I said what I said.”
You fluttered your lashes, all wide shiny eyes, about to cry.
“Get out before I start throwing shit at you.”
“Levi.” Plan B. Bribing.
“No.”
“Leeviii.”
“No.”
“Levi, aren’t you the sweetest, most dearest, my absolute favorite and delightful and super awesome with extra sugar on top bestiest best friend? Don’t be like that, c’mon.”
“Still no. And we’re not friends.”
“‘I’ll make you pie?” You offered.
“You can’t cook to save your life. No.”
"I'll give you hugs."
"I will slap you."
“Levi.” Plan C. Threatening.
He glares back at you.
"You do realize you could've used this time getting the report started instead of trying to convince me and actually might've manage to get it done?”
“I’ll read poetry to you.” You threatened.
Levi looks up, finally there’s a hint of alarm on his face. “No, you won’t.”
“I’ll make sure all your food touch.”
“Get out.”
“I’ll disorganize your bookshelf and fill it with those titan x scout love novels.”
He raised his middle finger at you.
“I will start telling you about all my exes.”
He cringed visibly.
Finally, you gave up. Dragging yourself off the couch, you slowly, pathetically, miserably made your way to the door. You knew that the odds were very low that Levi would actually help you this time, because he was right. You needed to learn a lesson. And it was your fault.
“Oi.”
Your hand was on the doorknob. “What?” You turned to look at him grumpily.
Levi was pinching the bridge of his nose, knitting his eyebrows together, irritated and annoyed. Like he was about to do something he regretted.
He let out a long exhale.
“Bring it here. I’ll help you.”
“What?” You asked, disbelief dripping from your tone. Were you dreaming?
“I’ll help you out. Just this time.” He grunts. “Don’t expect it again. And I’ll only guide you, you’re doing the most of it.”
Music to your ears.
“Really?”
“Go before I change my mind.” He huffed.
You broke into a wide grin, beaming up at him. “No wonder I love you.”
“The feeling is not mutual.”
“You’re the best,”
“Shut up.”
“The best. The most darling, the loveliest, the coolest, the–”
“10 seconds. I’m giving you 10 seconds.”
“Oh–” Your eyes widened. You learnt the hard way Levi usually means his time limits. “Okay, okay, wait here, wait. I’ll be right back. Just–”
And you were out the door,
“Fucking idiot.” He groaned to himself, as you yet again, slammed the door.
He wish he knew why he kept doing this to himself.
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