A Thought Piece.

When someone says these days sexism and misogyny don’t exist anymore show them this.

The new-TV-GoodOmens fanon tendency to take Aziraphale’s very-soft presentation as unadorned truth is be/amusing to me. 

He was the angel left to guard one of the Gates to Eden and he did in fact have a flaming sword. He is also the one who WOULD have shot Adam, had Madame Tracy not intervened. 

He is also the angel who’s response to “wait I need to get back to Earth to stop Armageddon” is to do something that clearly SCARED THE SHIT out of the other angels who watched him do it, with a malicious-glee-glint in his eye, who hopped disembodied down to earth, and then floated around to try to find the right place. 

He also, well. Fucked around with Heaven at all. There’s such a thread of comic corporate-absurd involved that it can be easy to miss, but what we’re shown is that the hierarchy of Heaven is just as happy as that of Hell to murder, torture, restrain, make captive and otherwise punish its own in the most horrible ways possible and in fact they’re far more effective at it. They just have a lot of Rules they follow, whereas Hell acts on a whim. 

And there’s Aziraphale running around lying to them and pulling the wool over their eyes and so on. Something which, very clearly, none of those other angels are interested in doing. 

Fundamentally Aziraphale is a stone cold agent of divine wroth. 

He just doesn’t want to be. 

He doesn’t like being like that. He doesn’t like suffering, his own or other people’s. All those times Crowley saves him, it’s important to keep in mind that Aziraphale’s in no more fundamental danger than he is when he loses his corporal form in the bookshop fire: if Crowley hadn’t shown up to save him in the church, for example, all that would have happened is that either a) he would have been discorporated and had to wait in line for a new body (or risk being reassigned) or b) Aziraphale would have had to do something Nasty to the Nazis there in order to save himself that trouble. 

He doesn’t like either of those options! Those are both crappy options. But they’re not existential threats. 

I’m the nice one he snaps when Crowley’s too busy having his Moment over his Bentley to take care of dealing with the soldier. 

Aziraphale doesn’t like having to be cruel, or mean, or scary, or stone cold. He doesn’t enjoy it and given the choice he will in fact choose not to be. 

What Crowley saves him from, over and over again, isn’t actually being killed. 

Because what interests Crowley in him, and we see that, all the way back, is that very first instance of Aziraphale choosing not to be that person. That first time when what Aziraphale was supposed to be was Stern and Frightening and Judgemental and Harsh and Terrifying … . and instead he chose to court potential punishment (and actual existential threat) to give the people he was supposed to Terrify a way to protect themselves from all the scary things. 

Aziraphale doesn’t want to be an instrument of judgement and wrath and what Crowley keeps saving him from is having to be. Crowley condemns the bloodthirsty executioner, so that Aziraphale doesn’t have to; blows up the Nazis so Aziraphale doesn’t have to. 

Lets Aziraphale be the nice one, in fact. 

Which I think is frankly far more fucking adorable. 

But never let it make you think that Aziraphale is the safe one, or the helpless one. 

He’s the one who, when faced with the apparent choice between killing a child and the end of the world, chooses to kill the child. Actually chooses to do it - not just plan, not just talk about, not just contemplate, but do it - and is only saved from having done it by sharing the body of someone who won’t let him. 

Aziraphale is soft and slightly silly and gentle and non-confrontational and all of those things because that’s what he wants to be. He has fought for a long time to get to be that. 

This is important. 

Rukmini

And perhaps what made her beautiful

was not her appearance

or what she achieved

but in her love,

and in her courage,

and her audacity to believe,

~ Morgan Nichols

Baahubali Summertime Challenge 6 - Milana ~

Baahubali-Lion King parallels

@teambaahubali

(And yes, this probably fits better as a meta but I assume the cross over universe thing works too?)

Aziraphale, hanging out on Noah’s Ark watching the flood waters rise. Hears a noise down in the hull and goes to investigate.

Finds Crowley stowed away in the hull along with several hundred Mesopotamian children ranging in age from infants to late teens.

Crowley, in the middle of passing around a bread basket that endlessly refills itself, looks up like a deer in headlights. “Okay, I can explain this…”

—Later that day—

Crowley, while bottle feeding one of the infants: I mean clearly the Almighty wants these children dead, what with their capacity for evil and stuff, so by saving them all, I’m actually going against the Ineffable Plan.

Aziraphale, hiding a smile: Right. Makes perfect sense.

Crowley: I’m being very evil here.

Aziraphale: Of course you are.

Crowley: …you’re not about to throw them all overboard, are you? Because I will fight you.

Aziraphale: Oh, no. You’ve clearly outwitted me this time. I must accept my defeat with grace. And Noah has enough on his plate with the animals, I shouldn’t burden him with this. You’ve won this round, wily serpent.

Crowley, getting choked up: Y-Yes, that’s right. I’m very wily. And evil. Don’t forget that.

David Tennant reads the bookshop scene from Good Omens during Playing in the Dark: Neil Gaiman and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Posting here to memorialise this even after the BBC takes it down from their website. Originally performed 12th Nov 2019 at the Barbican, London. 

…his Aziraphale voice is so delicate oh my word, I’m ready to offer my life savings and possibly a kidney in exchange for a full-length audiobook

Crowley, teaching Aziraphale to drive: Okay, so you’re driving and Gabriel and Michael walk onto the road. Quick, what do you hit?

Aziraphale: Oh definitely Gabriel

Crowley, sighing: The brakes, angel. You hit the brakes.

little miracle

concept

a beaded curtain, but instead of beads they’re worms on strings

ok universe, i’m ready to feel good things. make me feel good things.