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book--brackets · 4 months ago

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Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman (2005)

When Fat Charlie's dad named something, it stuck. Like calling Fat Charlie "Fat Charlie." Even now, 20 years later, Charlie Nancy can't shake that name, one of the many embarrassing "gifts" his father bestowed-before he dropped dead on a karaoke stage and ruined Fat Charlie's life. Because Mr. Nancy left Fat Charlie things. Things like the tall, good-look-ing stranger who appears on Charlie's doorstep, who appears to be the brother he never knew. A brother as different from Charlie as night is from day, a brother who's going to show Charlie how to lighten up and have a lit-the fun. And all of a sudden, things start getting very interesting for Fat Charlie. Exciting, scary, and deeply funny, Anansi Boys is a kaleidoscopic journey deep into myth, a wild adventure, as Neil Gaiman shows us where gods come from, and how to survive your family.

Gemma Doyle by Libba Bray (2003-2007)

It's 1895, and after the suicide of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma's reception there is a chilly one. To make things worse, she's been followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her. But why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence's most powerful girls—and their foray into the spiritual world—lead to?

Babel: An Arcane History by R. F. Kuang (2022)

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he'll enroll in Oxford University's prestigious Royal Institute of Translation — also known as Babel. Babel is the world's center of translation and, more importantly, of silver-working: the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation through enchanted silver bars, to magical effect. Silver-working has made the British Empire unparalleled in power, and Babel's research in foreign languages serves the Empire's quest to colonize everything it encounters.

Oxford, the city of dreaming spires, is a fairytale for Robin; a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge serves power, and for Robin, a Chinese boy raised in Britain, serving Babel inevitably means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to sabotaging the silver-working that supports imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide: Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence? What is he willing to sacrifice to bring Babel down?

Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard by Rick Riordan (2015-2017)

Magnus Chase has seen his share of trouble. Ever since that terrible night two years ago when his mother told him to run, he has lived alone on the streets of Boston, surviving by his wits, staying one step ahead of the police and the truant officers.

One day, Magnus learns that someone else is trying to track him down—his uncle Randolph, a man his mother had always warned him about. When Magnus tries to outmaneuver his uncle, he falls right into his clutches. Randolph starts rambling about Norse history and Magnus's birthright: a weapon that has been lost for thousands of years.

The more Randolph talks, the more puzzle pieces fall into place. Stories about the gods of Asgard, wolves, and Doomsday bubble up from Magnus's memory. But he doesn't have time to consider it all before a fire giant attacks the city, forcing him to choose between his own safety and the lives of hundreds of innocents. . . .

Sometimes, the only way to start a new life is to die.

Abhorsen by Garth Nix (1995-2016)

Sent to a boarding school in Ancelstierre as a young child, Sabriel has had little experience with the random power of Free Magic or the Dead who refuse to stay dead in the Old Kingdom. But during her final semester, her father, the Abhorsen, goes missing, and Sabriel knows she must enter the Old Kingdom to find him. She soon finds companions in Mogget, a cat whose aloof manner barely conceals its malevolent spirit, and Touchstone, a young Charter Mage long imprisoned by magic, now free in body but still trapped by painful memories.

As the three travel deep into the Old Kingdom, threats mount on all sides. And every step brings them closer to a battle that will pit them against the true forces of life and death--and bring Sabriel face-to-face with her own destiny.

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern (2019)

Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a mysterious book hidden in the stacks. As he turns the pages, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, key collectors, and nameless acolytes, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. Bewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues--a bee, a key, and a sword--that lead him to a masquerade party in New York, to a secret club, and through a doorway to an ancient library, hidden far below the surface of the earth.

What Zachary finds in this curious place is more than just a buried home for books and their guardians--it is a place of lost cities and seas, lovers who pass notes under doors and across time, and of stories whispered by the dead. Zachary learns of those who have sacrificed much to protect this realm, relinquishing their sight and their tongues to preserve this archive, and also those who are intent on its destruction.

Together with Mirabel, a fierce, pink-haired protector of the place, and Dorian, a handsome, barefoot man with shifting alliances, Zachary travels the twisting tunnels, darkened stairwells, crowded ballrooms, and sweetly-soaked shores of this magical world, discovering his purpose--in both the mysterious book and in his own life.

The Roots of Chaos by Samantha Shannon (2019-2023) The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction--but assassins are getting closer to her door.

Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic.

Across the dark sea, Tané has trained all her life to be a dragonrider, but is forced to make a choice that could see her life unravel.

Meanwhile, the divided East and West refuse to parley, and forces of chaos are rising from their sleep.

The Winternight Trilogy by Katherine Arden (2017-2019)

Winter lasts most of the year at the edge of the Russian wilderness, and in the long nights, Vasilisa and her siblings love to gather by the fire to listen to their nurse’s fairy tales. Above all, Vasya loves the story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon. Wise Russians fear him, for he claims unwary souls, and they honor the spirits that protect their homes from evil.

Then Vasya’s widowed father brings home a new wife from Moscow. Fiercely devout, Vasya’s stepmother forbids her family from honoring their household spirits, but Vasya fears what this may bring. And indeed, misfortune begins to stalk the village.

But Vasya’s stepmother only grows harsher, determined to remake the village to her liking and to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for marriage or a convent. As the village’s defenses weaken and evil from the forest creeps nearer, Vasilisa must call upon dangerous gifts she has long concealed—to protect her family from a threat sprung to life from her nurse’s most frightening tales.

The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo (2003)

As the only surviving mouse of the litter, Despereaux was always considered the loser, the runt, so naturally, he falls in love with a princess named Pea. The story also tells of a mouse called Roscuro, who lives in the darkness but wishes for light, and Miggery Sow, a serving girl who wants one wish. They set off on a journey that will end them up in a terrible dungeon, a wonderful castle, and of course, with each other.

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree (2022-2024)

Worn out after decades of packing steel and raising hell, Viv the orc barbarian cashes out of the warrior’s life with one final score. A forgotten legend, a fabled artifact, and an unreasonable amount of hope lead her to the streets of Thune, where she plans to open the first coffee shop the city has ever seen.

However, her dreams of a fresh start pulling shots instead of swinging swords are hardly a sure bet. Old frenemies and Thune’s shady underbelly may just upset her plans. To finally build something that will last, Viv will need some new partners and a different kind of resolve.

#best fantasy book #poll #anansi boys #gemma doyle #babel an arcane history #magnus chase #abhorsen #the starless sea #the roots of chaos #the winternight trilogy #the tale of despereaux #legends and lattes

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ketsuarting · 1 year ago

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I love this, because it blames @neil-gaiman for not writing a fourth season while a) season 3 hasn't even been greenlit yet b) there are STRIKES because everyone is UNDERPAYING THE EMPLOYEES OF THE INDUSTRY and c) this is an article you would usually read when season 3 is wrapping up. Not when there are maybe 30 pages of script.

Love it. Let's blame Neil Gaiman. Let's focus on that. Let's mourn a never gonna happen season 4, when we might never see the third season on the screen acted by the most wholesome actor duo I have ever witnessed in my life. Priorities.

Pay your writers. Pay your actors. Pay the people that make art, because life is miserable without art and we could all use a little less misery.

Funnily enough that part only incenses me on behalf of others, what makes me TRULY angry is that they think we're this stupid. I know that news will ALWAYS twist the numbers and words, because life is not black and white, and they need to streamline ideas to make them digestable. I get that.

But this is ridiculous. They're trying to distract people. They're trying to make people forget the reason why season 3 might never happen, and plant the idea in our head that it's the writers fault.

If you're going to manipulate us, be smart about it.

#news #neil gaiman #wga strike #sag strike #good omens #i am pissed #just so angry

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anne-bsd-bibliophile · 8 months ago

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Getting all the April Fool's Day badges feels kind of like this achievement in The Stanley Parable:

youtube

Tumblr Staff: Boop someone one time? Is that all you think these badges are worth? No no no no no. I can't just give these merits away for such little effort. A measly boop. Now, suppose you were to boop 314 times, I would say that's the kind of effort that warrants recognition. I have to say I'm still not feeling the satisfaction of witnessing true effort for a noble cause. No, no, no, no. I'm still not feeling it. I want this trophy to have meant something. It has to be a true reward for valiant effort. I want to see some hustle, Tumblr User! I want to see commitment a willingness to go all the way no matter the cost. Why don't you go boop other Tumblr Users 1,000 times! Oh, great, now go boop a few times on this blog over here. Excellent! I think we're getting somewhere. Now that blog that spammed you with boops! Let's give it ten boops or so. Now back to the first blog. Let's see, how about you boop, well, I don't know, a blog you've never heard of before? Alright, give more boops to your mutuals. I'm really feeling it now! I think we're getting somewhere! Okay, now go to a reblog in this post over here and boop them. Yes! This is great! You're putting it all on the line Tumblr User! I like that! All right, let's keep it up. Go give a few more boops on Neil Gaiman's blog. We've almost got it! Now the blog that booped you before, do that one again! Finish it off, five boops on any blog you think you might not have given a boop to yet. Yes! We did it! Oh wow, that felt amazing. Oh you really earned it Tumblr User, nothing could hold you back. Yes I'm very proud of how far we've come today.

#tumblr boops #boop o meter #tumblr badge #april fools #the stanley parable #Youtube

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goodomens-girlie · 1 year ago

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theater kids be like “ I just yes and my way through life”

Neil Gaiman/Good Omens kids just “wait and see” their way through life

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cobragardens · 1 year ago

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Self-Therapy in the Form of an Open Letter to Neil Gaiman and My Fellow Ineffables

Dear Ineffables, and Dear @neil-gaiman

I want to talk about Good Omens for a sec, ok? You are not obligated to listen! But if you want to listen, I have a Thing I need to say. And it's important to me and I have a Tumblr, so you can see where this is headed.

I know Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship, book and show, is primarily about the absurdity and tragedy and miraculousness and contagiousness of being human. I know it's about wanting friendship and cake instead of victory and ashes, and I love that. I know it did not start out as an intentionally or unequivocally queer story, and I know that neither the queerness nor the Christianity is the main theme of S1 or the book. And I think those are all good things: one of the big strengths that makes Good Omens so remarkable and so charming is its lightness of touch.

But Crowley did not start out as a demon, and Aziraphale did not start out as a butter-smooth liar, and they are neither of them the angel the other knew, and there are reasons for that. And S2 starts discussing those reasons, and now Crowley and Aziraphale have shared a very human kiss and have started a more overt phase of their ongoing conversation about what they are to each other. So one of the things we need to talk about is what it’s like to love the wrong person in a world like the world of Good Omens.

And I feel like I have some (very small) amount of expertise in this field. I do not have the skill as a writer to tell you what that was like to grow up Christian and deeply in love with my (also female) best friend in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the evangelical Christian Mecca of the United States. But I did it--or, rather, it happened to me--so I'm the person who has to write about it now.

It was Before Ellen. Homosexual sex was against the law in around half of U.S. states. Only one state (Rhode Island, which I am not convinced actually exists) had a law prohibiting discrimination against LGB people in housing, services, or employment. One U.S. state—my state, Colorado—amended its state constitution to prohibit prohibiting discrimination. Same-sex marriage did not exist. Same-sex couples could not adopt children. Being any flavor of queer could cost you custody in family court of any children you did have.

Queer young-adult novels did not exist. Movies and tv shows with queer characters did not exist unless they were serial killers or dying of AIDS. Safe-sex education did not exist, the LGBTQ section of the bookstore did not exist. Social media did not exist, the Internet was in its infancy (I was typing up papers in AppleWorks on an Apple IIe), smartphones did not exist. Porn was in magazines your friend’s older brother or uncle kept under his mattress.

The guy everybody in school thought was gay got beat up daily. The girls I'm not sure about. I only ever saw two girls/women who were out before I was 28 and met an openly lesbian woman in a university class.

In Colorado Springs, bumper stickers for Colorado for Family Values and Focus on the Family, both headquartered in the city, were common. Crosses and ichthys decals proliferated. There were only a few “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” stickers, but “Marriage = One Man + One Woman," or the same message in Ladies and Gents toilets symbols (with a pair of ladies and a pair of gents crossed out) were a regular sight on the backs of cars every day, every drive, my whole life there.

This was a world where there was one very specific God, who has one very rigid Plan, and whose Agents and Enemies fight each other for the eternal souls of every human being. And every player on the board was clear about this.

I was 12 when my dad and I met two women on a hiking trail and, after we all said hello and they three had chatted a bit and the women had walked on, he asked me if I had "gotten any spiritual witness about them." He told me he suspected they were lesbians.

I was 14 when I burst into tears and shouted at my dad when he spoke viciously of the two gay men who had come into his place of work earlier in the day. He called them “flaming” and “faggots.” I told him we were Christians and we were not hateful about people in that way. I didn’t know what the word faggot meant, not for sure (I picked up the meaning of flaming from his imitations), but I could tell it meant they were people who did awful things, and that he hated them.

I had never seen my dad like that before, hating someone. I had never heard him speak that way about anyone.

I was 16 when I rode in the back seat of our next-door neighbors’ Ford Focus on the way to Bible study and listened to the handsome Christian newlyweds up front discuss how awful it was that gay and lesbian couples were now allowed to adopt children in the state of New Jersey. It was bad, they said, that children could find homes with queer people “because children learn from their parents.”

I was 17 when 2 straight men beat and tortured Matthew Shepard and left him tied to a split-rail fence on the side of a road 3 hours north of Colorado Springs as a warning to the rest of us. A scarequeer.

A joke in poor taste, you may feel, this little pun. It is a pun, but it's not a joke.

One of Shepard’s murderers used the gay panic defense in court. In the U.S. the gay panic defense is one of reduced responsibility: a man cannot be held fully legally responsible for murdering another man if he claims he thought his victim was gay and making a pass at him. Because, under U.S. law, it is considered common for men to go temporarily insane and murder men they think may be gay and making a pass at them. I have rewritten this paragraph five times and that is the absolute least bananas I can make this sound. It is real and it is still a thing.

I was also 17 when Pastor Luis, the head of my church, preached in sermon about a member of the congregation who had fallen in love with another woman. He told us firmly: "She is no longer a lady. She is a lesbian."

He refused to counsel or marry them, services he insisted upon performing for the heterosexual couples among his congregants. He said he told the woman and her fiancee that they and their sin were not welcome in his house of God. He told us, the ones left, that we were not to contact the ejected woman or continue any friendships with her.

It was a small church, only about 60 people. Pastor Luis looked right into my eyes and held the eye contact with me (other peoole turned to look) when he said, "And if you don't agree with that, you are not welcome here either. You can leave now and never come back."

I did. For 10 years after that, I thought God had told Pastor Luis about me. That Pastor Luis had gotten the same "spiritual witness" off me that my dad had gotten off the 2 women we met backpacking. That he somehow knew—that any Christian might know if they listened, if they sniffed carefully enough. The smell of evil, I thought, must linger on me.

I was 18 when I got my first tattoo. My parents were relieved when I told them that’s all it was. "We thought you were going to tell us you were pregnant, or gay," they said.

I was 19 when a trans woman at a coffee shop told me about how she'd been fired as a substitute teacher from the biggest school district in the state. She didn't pass, so she dressed as a man when working. One day she made the mistake of wearing a women's button-down shirt (with the buttons on the left, not the right), and someone noticed and complained.

I was also 19 when my boyfriend's parents became concerned that he might be gay. (He had gotten his ears pierced and dyed his clipper cut pink while away at college.) As Christians his parents were against premarital sexual activity of any kind, including masturbation or sexual desire, so my bf couldn’t tell them how he knew he wasn’t gay, and for over a year they wouldn’t believe him. His mother bought some books from Family Christian Booksellers, the biggest Christian publisher in the U.S., about how as a Christian she should respond to her child’s queerness.

Throw them out, cut them off, and do everything you can to make sure your child starves and suffers, said the books. (I read them all.) Hunger and homelessness were the goal, they advised, but any misery you could cause was helpful. Turn other relatives against them, don't let them take their belongings when they go, cancel phone contracts and insurance plans.

When your child asks for help because they can't support themselves, you can force them to leave their beloved and drop their friends in exchange for survival, said the books. They will either eventually see that you and God are right and loving, and repent of their sin, or you will catch them lying to you and sneaking around, which is proof that homosexuality and other sins go hand in hand.

One book acknowledged that cutting them off would endanger teenagers and young adults and leave them vulnerable to rape, murder, and human trafficking (though it called being trafficked "prostitution"). But Christian parents acting in the name of God's love would not be responsible for the harm their kids suffered, it said: the children were bringing whatever happened to them on themselves as a natural consequence of living a sinful lifestyle.

In fact, said the book, being attacked or abused could be good for your children: if they suffer enough they may realize it’s their gayness that has caused all their problems and repent of their disgusting unacceptable love and desire.

In the United States, LGBT children represent 40% of homeless youth under 18. "Family conflict" is the number-one cause of LGBT youth homelessness.

I was 22 when the pastor of my boyfriend’s church received news that one of his congregants was engaged in a same-sex affair. Extramarital affairs were very common in his church—three of the deacons were cheating on their wives with other (also married) congregants, and my bf’s parents had been swingers —but this was the first and only time the pastor ever called a church member to the altar, outed him by described his sin to the congregation (c. 350), and demanded the man apologize to everyone and ask their forgiveness. The pastor told him that if he did not apologize he and his wife and children were not welcome to continue attending.

I was 23 when I heard that same pastor’s sermon on avoiding sexual temptation. Give up affection if it causes you to sin, he said. Scoop out your own eyes, cut off your own hand. He instructed men only to hug other men side-along, one arm around their shoulders, lest a real embrace cause them to feel sexual desire for another man. (No mention was made about how women should hug, or that women might ever feel sexual desire at all.)

I remember listening to this pastor's sermon and thinking, I know something about this man that he does not know about himself.

I was 24 when I went with my boyfriend to Pulpit Rock Church, seeking answers from the sermon they advertised on their signboard about sex and sexuality and gender. My boyfriend loved wearing women's clothes. Transgender and cross-dressing were just starting to replace transsexual and transvestite as the accepted terms for the things he might be. Nonbinary and genderqueer were not words we had. He wasn’t sure yet which thing he was; the thing he was was still, for us, unspeakable.

"Men are created to be men and women are created to be women," preached the pastor at Pulpit Rock. "Men and women are different in a way that can't be explained, and they fit together in a relationship in a divine way. A man and a man or a woman and a woman may love each other, but they'll never have the spiritual connection of a godly relationship that a man and a woman can have. We don't have to understand it, but we shouldn't question it, because that’s the way God made it."

Then he talked about how he and his wife could both make French toast (or maybe it was pancakes), but the way his wife made French toast was female somehow--ineffably--because she was a woman, even though the French toast was the same. My bf and I left in the middle of the sermon.

I was 25 when Ted Haggard, best friend of Focus on the Family founder James Dobson (of “Spongebob is teaching our kids it's ok to be gay” controversy) and pal of George W. Bush (the POTUS who pursued, in his own words, "a Crusade" in Iraq with the U.S. military to fight the influence of demons "Gog and Magog[…] at work in the Middle East"), was publicly outed. Male escort and Mike Jones—whom Haggard hired to sell him meth and give him happy-ending massages—recognized ‘Pastor Ted’ as the leader of Colorado Springs evangelical megachurch New Life Church, a nationally famous preacher who denounced the evils of homosexuality from his pulpit, and Jones, a big damn hero, tipped off the press.

I had heard Pastor Ted preach twice. New Life Church was a lot like Heaven in Show Omens in that it had a lot of open space and bright fluorescent lighting and smiling well-groomed people in it, as well as several giant digital screens floating in the air to either side of its dais on which the face of the straight-passing white man bringing his people the word of God was projected as he spoke. This latter feature also resulted in a slight resemblance to a Hitler rally, but there was more medium-stained oak in play than either Hitler or Heaven would find tasteful.

I was 26 when I acted as an informal lettings agent for one of my landlord's other apartments and the young Christian woman living downstairs asked me refuse shelter to any gay or lesbian people because she didn't want to have to live in the same building with them.

When I asked her how I was supposed to know whether someone was gay, she said, “Well you can just tell, can’t you?”

I was 30 when I came out to my Christian parents. Having read the Christian parenting books, I was hugely relieved when they didn't throw me out of their house, where I was living after college (and a few major depressive episodes and two global recessions). I was relieved that they wanted to continue to have a relationship with me at all, in fact.

"I still think it's a sin, though," my mother gently reminded me. My father has refused ever to discuss it at all.

I was 31 when I moved to the UK. I've spent 11 years trying and failing to scrape a living in the Thatcher-hollowed market towns around Manchester, under the fucking Tories, through fucking Brexit, through fucking May and fucking Boris and that weird little cabbage Liz Truss, in order to stay out of Colorado Springs. I can't get medical care on the NHS and I can't work or leave my apartment bc I can't get medical care and I can't heat my apartment in winter on Universal Credit and I’ve been threatened and assaulted by doctors and raped by a nurse and I’ve tried suicide a few times, and I'm in some smallish danger of dying here in Britain's left armpit, but I am not in Colorado fucking Springs today, am I. So that's something at least.

I was 41 and living in the UK for a decade when a homophobe with Christian parents shot up the only gay venue in Colorado Springs, Club Q, murdering 5 people and shooting 19 more. I'd been to Club Q a few times, on dead nights, when I lived in the city. The shooting was 24 years after homophobes tied Matthew Shepard to a fence and left him dying as a warning to the rest of us.

I never told my best friend I was in love with her.

Instead I had anxiety dreams in which my subconscious warned me I wasn't safe. In one dream, Not Yet appeared tattooed on the back of my hand as I looked at a female classmate who was dating another girl. I had to wear gloves to hide the rainbow that had appeared, indelible, on my ring finger.

My first kiss was with a (Christian) boy.

I knew what I felt for my best friend was effervescent and golden and breath-stealing. I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her, knew I wanted to live with her in a little house in the Pacific Northwest in the mist and the trees and make her coffee with a Turkish press anytime she wanted it and cuddle her on the closed porch and gripe about the wool in her sweater prickling my arms when I hugged her. I knew her eyelashes made her eyes look like they had stars in them and that she had the lushest curves and most perfect skin I had ever seen, and that when she smiled or laughed the shape of her mouth made something in me ache like tuning forks must ache when they're struck and made to sing.

I never told my best friend I was in love with her because I didn't know those were the words for what I was feeling.

Not until years later, after she had left my life. I had been told (frequently) by a Higher Authority that queer love was disgusting and ruinous and sinful and ugly and twisted and inferior, not this perfect fragile thing as soft and trembling-alive as a bird in my hands. Why would I think this was queer love?

I didn't catch the worst of it. I wasn't chained to a bed or forced to drink water from a dog dish, like the foster parents of the gay kid in class did to him. (The school asked him to give a talk to our class so they'd bully him less, so he told us about his life as the teachers looked on. He was 12.) I wasn't sent to conversion therapy like one classmate. I didn't spend most of my childhood in Bible School like other devout Christians' children; my family read the Bible a lot, and prayed together, but my parents weren't regular churchgoers. I was so, so lucky.

It destroyed me anyway.

The thesis of my essay runs thus, fellow ineffables: A happy ending for Crowley and Aziraphale is necessary.

It is necessary not just because Bury Your Gays is an overdone trope and an act of homophobia in the hands of straight writers; not just because Good Omens has been crafted with such loving care in both book and show incarnations to be optimistic, even sunny, against a backdrop of Orwellian, cosmic, and Kafka-esque horror; not just because casting miracles of the magnitude of David Tennant as Crowley and Michael Sheen as Aziraphale happen once a generation and it would be a shame and a waste not to write more magic for them to chew on; it is necessary because, in most places here in Shitworld, there are real people having the experience Crowley and Aziraphale are having, and not all of us are able to make happy endings for ourselves.

We don't have ethereal/occult powers or authorial control, so we need stories to show us how to love and when to fight and why to fucking bother. And the harder those things are to see in this world, the more we need those stories. And the more we need people with influence and audience and privilege telling them, not just all us little Tumblr rats and AO3 and Pillowfort perverts.

Crowley and Aziraphale exist in a fascist universe run by the ultimate Authoritarian—not Big Brother, but Big Father. There is nowhere for them to go, not even their own minds, where it is safe for them to love each other openly. I am completely prepared to believe someone in those circumstances could go 6,000 years without realizing the love they feel for their best friend is the kissing kind of love. I know someone can go a whole lifetime without saying it.

The hosts of Heaven and Hell will take away even the words for love when they can. We need people who don't just wield words but the power of the word spreading the message "There is a way to make this work. There is a way to exist. You can make a new world."

Mr Gaiman, I know from reading some of your other work that a big part of your whole Deal as a writer is an ongoing enthusiasm for the immense, even mystical, power stories have to shape individual and shared realities—sometimes to doom people and lock them into a destiny, but as often to let them escape their fate by imagining and conceiving a new way of living, or of living with each other, where none was possible before.

Hate and hope are the result of the stories we tell each other--I know you know this because I know you know that in saying it I am referencing a story you wrote. Like the hate, that hope only exists if an author says it does. And real people’s hearts, real people’s lives, are made and broken by listening to the wrong stories or hearing the right ones.

Crowley and Aziraphale are your characters, and Good Omens is your story to tell. You have written a setup in which, if you want these characters to be able to love each other, you (they) will have to create a world where that is possible. Please write us a romance. Please put enough sweet in with the bitter that we can survive it.

We have such faith in you because you have shown your readers and your audiences that you deserve that faith. Please choose your phrases wisely. ❤️

#good omens #good omens 2 #human rights #Colorado Springs #lgbtq #writing #religion #christianity #aziracrow #aziraphale x crowley #neil gaiman #stories #ineffable husbands #good omens s2 #trauma #mental illness #tmi #say your right words the goblins said

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tonydaddingham · 1 year ago

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UM.

Update 2: okay fine then, fuck it (she says still suspicious that there's no way neil would ever confirm a s3 plot point so of course he'd say this BUT THEN AGAIN if time were stopped why would the clock move UGH if it is an error ill be so upset)

UPDATE: so neil answered this but hmmm? now i know fuck all about jack shit admittedly but idk, presumably the first half of the scene where crowley confesses was filmed in at least a few takes? or pieced together in a few takes? and the clock is resolutely at 0925, indicating it would have been stopped? then the second half, just before aziraphale leaves the shop, it's jumped by 15 minutes... precisely.

even if filmed on different days/different calls, you'd expect the clock to have changed hours too...? and i cant imagine that a whole ass week after s2 release that neil would reveal anything about s3 which by all accounts he hasnt finished and can't finish writing yet... yeah im not convinced 100% it's a continuity error

so here is where you witness rhi shit on every single thing she has written including the interpretation written with visceral conviction that I Forgive You was written in response to crowley tempting aziraphale with the kiss. but the thing is, i cant believe that neil 'master of detail' gaiman, douglas 'every prop is important' mackinnon, and co. would let this continuity error slide (*side eye to crowley's sideburns and glasses change*):

now i sincerely hope that this isn't a 'crowley stops time and they actually decide that they're going to swap places/come up with a whole plan to save the world etc without discussing their Problems' incident, because as it stands narratively i feel that could be a little cheap

but possibly more a 'crowley stops time to stay in this below moment and they talk a bit more, but ultimately argue a bit more too and realise that neither as of yet is going to see each others' whole perspective but hey communication of any kind is a revelation for these dummkopfs' moment

like, i still hope there's angst going into s3. i need these two to be worlds apart from each other so they fully recognise the void that the lack of the other has left, and actually their ideological differences a) can be discussed and reconciled, and b) are perhaps not actually that different after all

but whatever potentially happens in those 15 minutes i hope still explains the absolutely devastated look on aziraphale's face, the I Forgive You, the glance back to Crowley before he gets in the lift, aziraphale steeling himself in the lift before he arrives in heaven... does crowley actually confess to aziraphale who he is? who he was before the fall? why he can never go back? why he can never be forgiven in the first place?

this has set my mind on FIRE

#good omens #im not ok #help #i really dislike speculating about the show on ANYTHING other than clues left by the story #(ie spec'ing by way of analysing neil's ask replies it makes me feel weird)#but yeah i cant believe that this would have been allowed to go unnoticed it is SO prominently in shot?#time-stop theory #feral domestic/final fifteen meta

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mrhaitch · 5 months ago

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Hello Mr. Haitch, how are you ? I reckon that since you're an author married to an another wonderful author, you may be familiar with the self-doubt and overall bleh feeling that comes with writing and not really finding pleasure or purpose in it anymore. My question is : how do you deal with that ? I don't see myself as a writer but I still try to nurture this hobby, it's just been hard when everything I write ends up feeling flat at best, unreadable at worst. I don't really have writer pals or readers who give me feedback and I was a bit sad to realise that even when sharing my writing on online spaces where there are no stakes, it still feels like a race to notes and interactions. How can I keep pushing past this ? How do I improve when no one gives me feedback ?

I'm doing well, thank you anon.

Yes this is all familiar to me, and it's something I'm presently overcoming myself (I think it's been over two years since I managed to complete something).

I think there's a few different things here to address so I'll take them each in turn.

Motivation - Loss of motivation is inevitable. All love affairs have peaks and troughs, creative ones doubly so. Accepting that what you're feeling now will pass in time can help, but it's not a cure. When I feel like a failure I try to remember something Neil Gaiman talked about a few years back: writing is a lot like trying to get to the top of a mountain, with every word being a single step closer or another foot surmounted. If you find there's a time you can't write, you're not going backwards, you're just standing in place. Sometimes you have to in order to catch your breath. Forgive yourself for taking a breather - and try to figure out why you need it.

Writing in isolation - This has been my own experience, to tell the truth. I hold a Masters degree in Creative Writing and sat through many hours of workshops, but even then it still felt like I was writing alone - that somehow the conversations that took place in those groups were competitive and unconstructive; everyone eyeing each other, asking 'do you like me? do you like my work? is this okay?'. Writing can be lonely, especially with that first draft where you're writing with the door closed, just figuring out the story one line at a time. You can experience several lifetimes in the space of an hour and occasionally emerge from your writing place, puffy faced and wild-eyed, feeling like you have to tell someone what you just witnessed, but find people give you a quizzical look and fail to understand. Working with others, sharing with others, especially people who do understand can be a wonderful balm for such extended (and sometimes necessary) solitude - but it can have it's own problems. Sometimes you internalise the expectations and tastes of others in such a way that proves more of a hindrance then a help. Which brings me to-

Writing for a social media profile - I've done this myself some times and fell into the same trap you describe: second guessing my work for the sake of a theoretical audience, interpreting a lack of engagement as a sign of my own failures or short-comings as a writer. Even when I published for the first time, and then again for a second, I have only met one person who read my work and it was only because they were published in the same anthology. The relationship between artist and audience is difficult, fraught might be a better word, and one that deserves its own post. Sometimes the audience feels they're owed something by the artist, sometimes the artist senses that expectation and subjects their work to censure to adapt it to what they think the audience wants from them. In the end you've got a work that satisfies no one. Social media can help you find an audience - but it's also a medium built around habit, dependency, and engagement. It's not a true reflection of your worth, but rather how closely what you produce as an artist best fits that platforms algorithms and business models. And, here I'm flirting with arrogance a bit, you should never really concern yourself with what everyone might think.

As for advice, here's the best I've got: find whatever it is that brings you to the page and keeps you there. If trying to satisfy the expectations of others isn't helping, then focus on what you want. How would you tell this story, if you were the only person to ever read it? How would you excite yourself, challenge yourself, enlighten yourself?

Beyond that I'd suggest reading a lot and reading widely. Feed the creative compost heap that dwells in the darker, mustier corners of your mind, and see what weird and wonderful things take root.

And if you want something to prime the engine, watch this short interview with Ray Bradbury towards the end of his life. It always cheers me up:

youtube

#mr.haitch #pseudowho #mr haitch #mrhaitch #mrhaitch answers you too #pseudowho answers you

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book--brackets · 4 months ago

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Simon Snow by Rainbow Rowell (2015-2021)

Simon Snow is the worst chosen one who’s ever been chosen.

That’s what his roommate, Baz, says. And Baz might be evil and a vampire and a complete git, but he’s probably right.

Half the time, Simon can’t even make his wand work, and the other half, he sets something on fire. His mentor’s avoiding him, his girlfriend broke up with him, and there’s a magic-eating monster running around wearing Simon’s face. Baz would be having a field day with all this, if he were here—it’s their last year at the Watford School of Magicks, and Simon’s infuriating nemesis didn’t even bother to show up.

Carry On is a ghost story, a love story, a mystery and a melodrama. It has just as much kissing and talking as you’d expect from a Rainbow Rowell story—but far, far more monsters.

Gentleman Bastard by Scott Lynch (2006-present)

An orphan's life is harsh — and often short — in the island city of Camorr, built on the ruins of a mysterious alien race. But born with a quick wit and a gift for thieving, Locke Lamora has dodged both death and slavery, only to fall into the hands of an eyeless priest known as Chains — a man who is neither blind nor a priest.

A con artist of extraordinary talent, Chains passes his skills on to his carefully selected "family" of orphans — a group known as the Gentlemen Bastards. Under his tutelage, Locke grows to lead the Bastards, delightedly pulling off one outrageous confidence game after another. Soon he is infamous as the Thorn of Camorr, and no wealthy noble is safe from his sting.

Passing themselves off as petty thieves, the brilliant Locke and his tightly knit band of light-fingered brothers have fooled even the criminal underworld's most feared ruler, Capa Barsavi. But there is someone in the shadows more powerful — and more ambitious — than Locke has yet imagined.

Known as the Gray King, he is slowly killing Capa Barsavi's most trusted men — and using Locke as a pawn in his plot to take control of Camorr's underworld. With a bloody coup under way threatening to destroy everyone and everything that holds meaning in his mercenary life, Locke vows to beat the Gray King at his own brutal game — or die trying...

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (2020)

Piranesi's house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.

There is one other person in the house--a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.

The Broken Earth Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin (2015-2017)

This is the way the world ends. . .for the last time.

It starts with the great red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal, and long dormant wounds rising up to fester.

This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness (2011)

Conor has the same dream every night, ever since his mother first fell ill, ever since she started the treatments that don't quite seem to be working. But tonight is different. Tonight, when he wakes, there's a visitor at his window. It's ancient, elemental, a force of nature. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor. It wants the truth.

Patrick Ness takes the final idea of the late, award-winning writer Siobhan Dowd and weaves an extraordinary and heartbreaking tale of mischief, healing and above all, the courage it takes to survive.

The Sandman by Neil Gaiman (1990-2003)

In PRELUDES & NOCTURNES, an occultist attempting to capture Death to bargain for eternal life traps her younger brother Dream instead. After his 70 year imprisonment and eventual escape, Dream, also known as Morpheus, goes on a quest for his lost objects of power. On his arduous journey Morpheus encounters Lucifer, John Constantine, and an all-powerful madman.

The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang (2018-2020)

When Rin aced the Keju—the Empire-wide test to find the most talented youth to learn at the Academies—it was a shock to everyone: to the test officials, who couldn’t believe a war orphan from Rooster Province could pass without cheating; to Rin’s guardians, who believed they’d finally be able to marry her off and further their criminal enterprise; and to Rin herself, who realized she was finally free of the servitude and despair that had made up her daily existence. That she got into Sinegard—the most elite military school in Nikan—was even more surprising.

But surprises aren’t always good.

Because being a dark-skinned peasant girl from the south is not an easy thing at Sinegard. Targeted from the outset by rival classmates for her color, poverty, and gender, Rin discovers she possesses a lethal, unearthly power—an aptitude for the nearly-mythical art of shamanism. Exploring the depths of her gift with the help of a seemingly insane teacher and psychoactive substances, Rin learns that gods long thought dead are very much alive—and that mastering control over those powers could mean more than just surviving school.

For while the Nikara Empire is at peace, the Federation of Mugen still lurks across a narrow sea. The militarily advanced Federation occupied Nikan for decades after the First Poppy War, and only barely lost the continent in the Second. And while most of the people are complacent to go about their lives, a few are aware that a Third Poppy War is just a spark away . . .

Rin’s shamanic powers may be the only way to save her people. But as she finds out more about the god that has chosen her, the vengeful Phoenix, she fears that winning the war may cost her humanity . . . and that it may already be too late.

Villains by V. E. Schwab (2013-present)

Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong.

Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find—aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the archnemeses have set a course for revenge—but who will be left alive at the end?

Uprooted by Naomi Novik (2015)

Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life.

Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.

The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows—everyone knows—that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn’t, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her.

But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.

Legacy of Orisha by Tomi Adeyemi (2018-2024)

They killed my mother. They took our magic. They tried to bury us. Now we rise. Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie's Reaper mother summoned forth souls. But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope. Now Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good. Danger lurks in Orïsha, where snow leoponaires prowl and vengeful spirits wait in the waters. Yet the greatest danger may be Zélie herself as she struggles to control her powers -and her growing feelings for an enemy.

#best fantasy book #poll #simon snow #gentleman bastards #piranesi #the broken earth #a monster calls #the sandman #the poppy war #villains #uprooted #legacy of orisha

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denimbex1986 · 10 months ago

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'Good Omens creator and showrunner Neil Gaiman has provided a hilarious response to questions about Aziraphale's and Crowley’s fate in season 3. Based on the book of the same name Gaiman co-authored with Terry Pratchett, Good Omens season 2 followed an original story that picked up after the demon Crowley (David Tennant) and the angel Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) successfully averted the apocalypse. In a shocking moment, the Good Omens season 2 finale saw Tennant’s character reveal his true feelings toward his angelic counterpart, only to have the pair torn apart by Aziraphale’s new role as Heaven’s supreme archangel.

Recently, one fan reached out to Gaiman via his Tumblr account to ask whether the show’s leads will end up together during Good Omens season 3.

Responding with wit, Gaiman joked that Crowley and Aziraphale “are barely in it” and are both killed off during the events of the show’s final season. Instead, he quipped the show would focus on a trio of rabbits “who go to the big city to open a conveyor belt sushi restaurant.”

Why Good Omens Season 3 May More Closely Mirror Season 1’s Tone

Originally conceived as a limited series, when Prime Video announced that Good Omens would be returning for season 2 in 2021, the renewal surprised viewers. With season 1 covering the entirety of the original Good Omens book, there were initially some questions about where Gaiman would take the story without the benefit of working alongside his original collaborator. Thankfully, however, Gaiman later revealed that both authors had originally planned a sequel to their bestselling novel in the 1990s, with that story intended to eventually serve as the basis for a potential season 3.

Instead of wanting to head straight into that story, Gaiman developed the plot for season 2 as a bridge between the two pre-existing tales he had worked on with Pratchett. Despite his dedication to remaining faithful to the late Discworld author’s voice, there were still several key departures throughout Good Omens season 2 to the format and tone that was established in season 1. Not only moving away from Frances McDormand’s God as the show’s narrative voice, season 2 also followed a much smaller story, allowing for a greater focus on the two leads.

However, with Pratchett having been directly involved in developing the story behind Good Omens season 3 and Gaiman confirming that it will feature another apocalypse, the show may also see a similar return to other major season elements. Whether that may also hint at a potential return of characters like Adria Arjona’s Anathema Device and Jack Whitehall’s Newton Pulsifer remains to be seen. Nonetheless, both Crowley and Aziraphale are still likely to be front and center of the unfolding drama, despite Gaiman’s hilarious suggestions to the contrary.'

#Good Omens #Tumblr #Neil Gaiman #Terry Pratchett #Aziraphale #Crowley #Series 3 #Michael Sheen #David Tennant #Jack Whitehall #Newton Pulsifer #Adria Arjona #Anathema Device #Frances McDormand #God

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cant-really-remember · 1 year ago

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Good Omens from a Cult Perspective

And I don’t mean the fandom cult…

I wrote a hasty meta about being a cult survivor and watching GO (here) and I was hoping to start parsing out some of the things. I wanted to start off talking about the final fifteen.

Starting here feels the most natural because it was this scene that I felt so so deeply.

Before I dive in, I want to lay down some foundations so this can be easier to follow.

Things to know

-Cults can be benign, the proper way to distinguish dangerous ones is calling them “high control groups”. I will be talking about high control groups only, using the shorthand “cults”. Also I will speak of “inside” and “outside” to describe the “us and them” nature of cultic systems.

-Cults use a system to organizes people around a doctrine, a charismatic leader, or both. Akin to fascism, complete obedience is expected. This can be achieved in many way, but the most common are: behavior, thought, and environment control.

-“Bounded choice” is a term from Janja Lalich (an incredible cult scholar) from a book of the same name. She describes that cults hijack peoples’ free will by making them think they have choices, but really the are bounded to the reality of the cult. So people inside feel like they are making choices, but the things they have to choose from are ONLY within the rules or world of the cult. Every choice is, at its core, “do what we say or you are out”.

-Cults are not just robes and incense. It’s not even always a group of random people. Families can function like cults. One-on-one abusive relationships can be set up as a cultic system. My story has all three.

-People in cults, and to a much higher degree people who are born in to cults, are not allowed to have an identity that is separate from the cult. Their sense of self is defined by the cult. An extremely cool term I learned while studying cults is “arbiter of existence” - the cult essentially tells you who you are and, at the end of the day, they tell you if you are. They can tell you that you aren’t, that you don’t exist. They can - and often do - cut you off and erase your existence, in their world, you will have never existed. This is a common practice and an even more common threat. Sound familiar?

-Lastly, Aziraphale = he, Crowley = she (babygirl)

The final fifteen

Really more like the final 21. I want to start when the Metatron shows up. Quick run down:

Metatron shows up, he isn’t recognized by the beautitudes, immediately demands validation (asking Crowley who he is), then demands obedience, and sidles up to Aziraphale with a small gift and some doddering old man charm.

Next we see him assure Aziraphale “you don’t have to answer immediately, take all the time you need…go and tell your friend the good news”. Then, in flashback, we see him reassuring Aziraphale that he is a great leader and honest (I’m pretty sure he is neither) and *harmlessly* mentioning that he has seen Aziraphale’s “de facto partnership with the demon Crowley”.

After this is when the wheels fall off. So I want to stop here and make cult connections.

painting by @aliceblakeart

The cult connection

In my analysis of the final 21 through the lens of cult survivorship, this is how I identify the parts. But I do have to first state that Neil Gaiman grew up as both a mainstream Jew and a Scientologist, as well as attended a highly religious Christian school.

Heaven and Hell are both cults - Heaven is a regimented, highly organized cult (like Scientology) and Hell is oppressive and insidious but much less strict (like, ironically, mainstream Judaism). Crowley was ejected from the cult of Heaven for asking questions - this is literally why LOTS of people get get kicked out and shunned from their cults - and she has found a new cult, Hell.

Cult members are, by necessity, optimists. They HAVE to believe there is a greater good, especially when they are enduring or witnessing violence or oppression. They are trained to think that the small things don’t matter (like Job’s children) because there are more blessings in store for the future. Aziraphale, as we see through the entirety of GO, is struggling with this. Crowley isn’t struggling with it, she knows it’s crap. She knows Heaven and Hell are both full of shit. But she just goes along as far as she can.

Ethereal/Occult, by Me 😇

Surviving a cult

It’s takes a lot of mental and emotional fortitude to survive inside and outside of a cult. While inside, you are constantly being asked/forced to do things against your own moral judgement. You are expected to push past your own boundaries to achieve the cult’s (or the leader’s) goals - no matter how ineffable they may be. You exist in a world of mental gymnastics. When you are confronted with hypocrisy or just plain bad deeds, you really only have a few choices: deny it, justify it, or let it start to crack at your sense of self.

This is where Aziraphale is. We see him in denial, we see him performing feats of mental gymnastics, and then we see him let the truths begin to crack him. Now from a person looking in from the outside, we can celebrate these cracks! They mean freedom, right?! But these cracks come with the most, absolute, devastatingly heartbreaking pain.

Crowley knows this pain. She is now an outsider. (I know she is still in a cult, but let’s just focus on Heaven right now). She has been ejected and shunned and possibly her memory has been wiped. Crowley’s existence as an angel is no more. She knows the cruel pain of the million light year free-style dive from the naïveté and comfort of the her life as an ethereal being into a dark, disgusting place.

I have been both inside and outside of a cult. I have known people on the outside when I was inside and I have known people inside when I was out. These are two sides of an extremely emotionally complicated coin. When you are in, looking out, you see the freedoms and the fun but you also see it as so lonely without your cult and confusing. The cult is your constant companion, either actually physically or just mentally. It guides your choices, it has rules for everything so you don’t have to do that nasty critical thinking stuff. Yuck. And the cult gives you meaning, it provides members with a higher purpose, it tells them who they are, and it even defines the boundaries and rules of the world. If your cult tells you that gravity only works if you wish every fifteen minutes, you will spend your entire life wishing every fifteen minutes - not daring to stop because if you do, gravity will cease and everyone on the planet will go floating off in to space. A cult can also tell you that certain things don’t work, like perhaps that an angel and a demon cannot be friends. It’s physically impossible. It is against the rules of physics. This, again, is where Aziraphale is.

On the outside looking in, you have so much more information. And a lot of the that information is pain. At least at first. With time and therapy, the pain will hopefully melt away or be healed. But Crowley ain’t there yet, she is still standing in the window grieving the loss of her angelic existence. Well, at least, in S1. By the end of S2, she has figured out they are toxic and she doesn’t need either of them. So the burden of information weighs heavy on Crowley. She knows the absolute gut-wrenching pain of leaving Heaven, but she also knows the lightness of leaving it’s fascism behind.

I have had more Crowley experiences in my life, most recently my sister leaving our cult and my best friend leaving her abusive relationship. For many years, I have been in close relationship with both of them while they were deep in their respective cults and then witnessed them leaving (the latter left three times). I wanted to grab them and shake them and yell at them and say RUN!! But I knew it wouldn’t do a lick of good. I knew it would just cause more pain. I knew that the only best option is to stay right there, available for support, and as a constant reminder that there is a life on the outside.

(If you know whose this is, I would love to give credit)

How this translates to Crowley and Aziraphale over the years

We know the dynamic well: Aziraphale digs his heels in and Crowley runs. But if you peel back just a few layers of the well-crafted artifice, it is Crowley who never waivers. Aziraphale constantly reminds her of the wide and deep fissure that exists between them. Or at least Heaven says it exists. That fissure. They are “hereditary enemies”, they are the bad guys, there can’t be an “us”. Aziraphale is still so deeply indoctrinated by Heaven that he believes any relationship with Crowley is literally impossible.

Aziraphale lobs cruel insults and constantly downplays how much Crowley means to him. Crowley just sometimes gets hurt and leaves the scene. But Crowley comes back because she knows that it’s not Aziraphale saying that, it’s Heaven.

When my sister was still in, the only times she said anything cruel to me was when it came from someone else. I could hear it, in the way she was talking and in the words she used. They weren’t hers. And I knew the words weren’t hers because I knew my sister deep underneath all the cult stuff. So I would get off the phone and draw a boundary and leave the scene. But here is where my and Crowley’s stories diverge. She always went back and apologized.

This is Crowley still feeding into the cult dynamic. In a cult, the leader and/or doctrine in never wrong. So you become extraordinarily adept at taking responsibility for everything, no matter what. It becomes second nature. I did it in all my relationships until I realized where it came from and that it is just pisspoor boundaries. But Crowley is scared and doesn’t want to lose Aziraphale and doesn’t think her love is stronger than Heaven. So, instead of holding her boundary, Crowley comes back and asks for forgiveness from Aziraphale every time.

We all know where Aziraphale needs growth - he needs to leave the damn cult - but this is where Crowley needs growth. She has to walk away and stay away. In my own life, I played this game with my sister back and forth until I realized that I had nothing to apologize for. She was being cruel and crossing my boundaries. I was reacting accordingly. In an extremely painful decision, I told her that I couldn’t talk to her anymore because of the way she was treating me. I can’t tell you how excruciating this was. But, two years later, it’s the best thing I could have done.

That day something snapped in her. When she saw me walk away because of how the cult was expecting her to behave, she began the slow and painful process of getting out.

Smitten, I believe, by Me 😇

The fifteen, for real this time

So in this analogy, the Metatron is the cult leader, Aziraphale is in the cult but waffling, and Crowley is on the outside trying to help him get out.

The Metatron has done all the things a cult leader/abuser would do:

-lied through flattery (you’re a great leader)

-threaten very passively (I’ve seen the de facto partnership)

-given a gift (the coffee)

-the “im just like you” moment (I’ve ingested things in my day)

-isolation (taking Aziraphale out of his safe space and away from a person who would actually stand up for him)

-lying about having a choice (you don’t have to answer immediately, take all the time you need - but really he shows up ten minutes later and says “ok let’s go” and we never see Aziraphale actually give an answer)

-making something awful sound good (tell your friend the good news)

I can list these things from memory because this scene is seared in my memory. When I saw it the first time I cried like a baby and it wasn’t because I was so invested in our ineffable idiots. It was because I had seen this same thing happen to my best friend. I saw her get hoovered back into a relationship with her abuser twice.

What you have to understand about trying to leave a cult is that you never really want to. Something has to push you over the edge. Something has to break. Something that’s so f’ing bad that you decide to essentially elect not to exist anymore. I did this, I elected not to exist to my family anymore. But this was after so, so many years of going back after leaving and being treated just as poorly, if not worse.

The cult/leader/abuser is a master at keeping you just far enough from the edge that you don’t fall over. One of the ways they can keep you is that the cult dynamic is set up so nothing in the world feels better than being in the cult’s/leader’s/abuser’s favor. This is the pinnacle of validation, it is life giving (because remember, they are the arbiter of existence).

The act of drawing you back from the edge is known as hoovering - like sucking you back in with a giant Hoover vacuum. There are many plays in the playbook for this, but the particular one the Metatron uses is the “you can have it all” play.

See, the Metatron knows that Aziraphale doesn’t want to leave Crowley but he also knows that Aziraphale desperately wants to be in Heaven’s favor. Aziraphale was trained to desperately want that. There are little moments in S2 where you can see him getting validation from Crowley (in lieu of Heaven’s approval) and his eyes light up, he even laments not being able to report to Heaven. So the Metatron proposes a “you can have it all” scenario.

Come back, we will flatter you and give you approval and status, oh, and you can bring your twink with you. It will be totally cool and you will be able to do whatever you want and we trust you to make decisions and you will be in charge and you will have it all just perfect.

Except it’s all a lie. We know, from the Gabriel tapes, that you can’t say no. No matter if you are the Supreme Archangel. It’s not totally cool and you better tow the line. And Crowley knows this, too. Crowley knows that Aziraphale is being lied to, again. She knows where this goes.

So when the happy-arms bright-eyes proposal of going back to Heaven comes out, Crowley - after being aghast at Aziraphale’s naïveté- makes a last ditch effort to pull Aziraphale out the door and over the edge. “How can someone so clever be so stupid?” The final fifteen is Crowley slowly coming to realize that this is a train wreck she has absolutely no power to stop or divert. The kiss was an attempt at the grab-their-shoulders-and-shake-furiously that we all feel when we see someone clearly making a mistake. And “don’t bother” is Crowley succumbing to the speed and velocity of the train barreling down the tracks. She knows that the only thing that will stop this is the train actually hitting something.

Tell me you said no, by Me 😇

Aziraphale has made his bounded choice. He has believed the lies and manipulation and future faking and thinks he is making the best choice for them AND for the world. He will change Heaven, he will save humanity, he will be with Crowley. It’s literally perfect. He can not understand why Crowley doesn’t see it.

So where does that leave us

Well, in the worst case scenario, Aziraphale goes back to Heaven, back in to the fold, becomes totally indoctrinated and forgets Crowley. But, Neil said it was going to be ok and I trust him.

I think that two wonderful things will happen. I think Crowley will hold her boundary. I think she will learn her own value and that she deserves to be treated with care and kindness. I think we see this in the way she left the last time. She walked out and waited. Didn’t run back, didn’t apologize, didn’t beg for the forgiveness she pretends she doesn’t want. She stood there leaned against the Bentley with a straight backbone like “I am worth it and if you can’t see it you’re an idiot.” She is saying, “you have to come to me this time.”

And I think the moment outside the elevator is the train-hitting-something for Aziraphale. When the Metatron says “it’s called the second coming” you hear a miracle sound. Forever I thought that this was the Metatron putting some sort of trance on Aziraphale because that would explain the creepy smile, right? But after the sound, he turns to look at Crowley one last time. If he was in a trance, he wouldn’t have done that. Then I realized, that was his snap! All the cracks and doubt and things Crowley has been telling him finally snapped into place. The miracle was putting “A Nightingale Sang” on the radio of the Bentley.

Hear me out: we know that Aziraphale has established a connection with the Bentley. We know that song means a lot of things for them. And now we know that Aziraphale has possibly had slow motion train crash moment.

Aziraphale is well aware of the mortal/ethereal danger he is in in the presence of the Metatron. He could be smoted/smited/smitten on the spot, so he is not going to turn on his heel and run back to Crowley. He will send a message and start to make his escape plans.

I don’t want to make predictions past that because Neil is incredible and I want him to tell the story.

Thanks for reading of you got all the way down here ☺️ I have so much to say about the intersection of cults and GO.

#good omens 2 #ineffable fandom #ineffable husbands #good omens #ineffable partners #crowley x aziraphale #good omens fanart #ineffable fanart #good omens prime #cult survivor #cults #cult omens #can’t really go

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