#just an audhder with a special interest in psychology and a bachelor's in literary analysis 😄

[thekats]

While I do agree that this very fact warrants us to take it easy on Az and give him time to work his way through it, I also think accountability (for lack of a better word in my present vocab) should still hold.

Yes, "demonising" (heh, arent I a jokester) abuse victims of any dynamic is wrong and not gonna push them on the path to learning, but reality checks and direct communication are a must, in my opinion and experience, to show them the errors of their ways. He is hurting himself and others (at least Crowley), which is not to be accidentally encouraged. It is also not to be actively villainised. Insetad, it should be pointed out and alternative behaviours can be suggested and rewarded.

Trauma, disability (like neurodivergence), and any other marginalisation do not give you a free pass to toxicity (or discrimination). Aziraphale had been unlearning a lot of the "brain washing" by heaven and is now seemingly "relapsing", falling back into the comfort of a known system because sometimes the abuse we are familiar with is more easily endured than the strangeness and pain of reflection, self-critique and the unforeseeable outcome of betterment. Especially for autistics. Change, even for the better, is typically super scary for us, doubly so if that involves confronting ourselves with our own wrongs.

There is something to be said in terms of leeway since we cannot directly communicate with Aziraphale. Only Crowley could and he does a piss-poor job of it, which is the same scenario as with Az. Crowley had no choice but to unlearn heaven's indoctrination bc of the fall, but that analysis is not what I'm doing here. My point in this paragraph is, that for all that we rationalise and exchange what ways we ought to treat the characters, it is irrelevant in relation to them bc we simply can't. We can, however, take what we're working out into our personal lives and work to better ourselves in how we treat real people with similar issues.

Which makes it all the more infuriating to see the blatant contempt of some towards our angel. It shows us how these people likely (would) treat such a person irl, which has much more at stake than the feelings of another fictional character being hurt by the "problematic" subject of discussion.

@lxvenderjewel thank you for the submission!

Sigh. This is like victim-blaming but... worse? Which like, I didn't even think that was possible. But apparently it is!

"Because it is an ab*sive system", we need to extend Aziraphale an extra measure of grace.