#next season had better be crowley wrestles with the universe i am telling you!!!

[winepresswrath]

I do gotta say tho, even tho I’m mad at aziraphale because he’s being a terrible boyfriend like what you said about the “I forgive you like” because WHAT. But also I really like the way the show really demonstrates the underlying cruelty of heaven and it’s angels. Really shows the hypocrisy of a group of beings who are supposed to do good, especially aziraphale who really buys into the heaven propaganda, who hurts people, particularly the person who means the most to him. Because like you said he fully just takes advantage of that devotion Crowley has for him. Insane, this shwo makes me INSANE

I missed this anon and yeah! The angels were one of my favourite parts of the season, and I think the strongest element aside from Neil Gaiman deciding he's just a simple man who wants to put his otp in situations. They are deeply awful and I kind of love them. They are the exact kind of moralizing hypocrites who are callous and cruel precisely because they think being on team good means everything they do is justified and it's actually impossible for them to be in the wrong (they're angels! is it even possible for them to do the wrong thing?).

but!! To me, they also seem like they're basically kids? Obviously they're not literally children, but there is this very consistent reoccurring joke about how childish/sheltered/immature they are. Muriel is the most obvious example, but the archangels come off like bratty twelve year olds to her sweet little kid.

Gabriel is basically teenager in love flipping off his family as he runs away with his backstreet guy. Uriel is constantly picking at Michael, Michael is playing at being in charge like it's a game, and it's ridiculously easy for both Aziraphale and Crowely to trick them obvious half assed lies. They're not allowed to ask questions! The Metatron treats them like badly behaved kids out past their curfew. At any point an old man with a beard may pop up to scold them and send them home, and they're all scared of doing something wrong by his standards and getting in trouble with this guy who is pointedly not God but who lines up exactly with the pop-culture idea of god the father, and who offers Aziraphale, among other things, a respite from the hard work of figuring out what the right thing to do is for himself. It's fine! You don't have to question the belief system you were born into or make a painful break with everything you've ever known! Aziraphale has had six thousand years on earth to grow up, but the other angels have been sitting in a sterile white box playing "i'm not touching you" games with each other and filing paperwork.

And I think that's extra interesting because this season also really emphasizes:

Heaven has Institutional Problems

Aziraphale isn't the only angel who's unhappy in heaven. Gabriel and Muriel were both completely miserable. They just didn't understand that they were unhappy because they'd never experienced anything else.

Angels who aren't Aziraphale can change and grow! There's very explicitly Gabriel being changed by love and Muriel growing up a bit on earth, and from a more fan-theory angle there's also Jimbriel, who I think is probably basically Gabriel minus the war and six thousand years of playing referee for Michael and Uriel while unleashing an assortment of plague and calamities on earth because that's God's will! Buck up champ.

We also get Gabriel and Beezelebub talking about how their underlings basically live for Armageddon, "if you can call that living." This is so bleak. They've all been on a six thousand year time out just dreaming of the day they get to beat the shit out of each other until they feel better, but it won't work because eternity is just more of the box.

Anyway I think it's going in a distinctly eden adjacent direction. Aziraphale is going to tempt those angels with knowledge and the capacity for change. I have veered so far from your ask anon i'm sorry you're right heaven really went all out on sucking this season & while Crowley and Aziraphale are both fucking it up Crowley refrains from being spectacularly cruel to Aziraphale about it and Aziraphale should learn to return the favour. I forgive you!! I forGIVE you. I forgive YOU. "you can be an angel again" is actually a worse thing to say than "you're a demon. i don't even like you." when he finally picks crowley over heaven i'm going to lose my mind.

[fantasaria]

#idk it makes me sad that i didn't like the humans very much this season because i think ideally they're central to this whole how to be#a person question i also hope we get to see more of hell next season because i do think they're stuck in basically the same place#with a different aesthetic! and the stick being#thrown into a torture pit instead of thrown into hell#or like. mindwiped and locked in an office for all eternity#gabriel broke my heart which is embarrassing but when he goes from not even understanding what music is to experiencing#the simple pleasure of sharing a song with someone for the very first time and almost immediately hits repeat for eternity... baby. baby bo#i would also like more crowley! this was very much the season of aziraphale#which is fine but i missed him yelling questions at god and the bits where it seemed he really wanted aziraphale's opinion instead of just#wanting aziraphale to develop better opinions#next season had better be crowley wrestles with the universe i am telling you!!!#remember three months ago when i was like eh... another good omens season#i bet it'll be cute but i'm content with my book#i don't go here i said strapping on my clown shoes#seriously though i do think crowley is scared to admit to wanting to be good both because god rejected him and he doesn't want#to be a sucker for her (he is only interested in being a sucker for aziraphale)#and like. chase after something he's barred from and has already been told isn't for him.#and that's why it's so hard for him to admit even to himself that he too would be unhappy ditching earth#in ways that parallel aziraphale's unwillingness to let go of heaven as a source of moral authority and goodness#but the way aziraphale goes oh no! i cannot trust my own judgement and desires. They are suspect!#my judgement is that crowley is good and also funny and sexy. my desires are for his company and also his body#therefore the source of these desires is also maybe bad. i mean he's a demon. he's got to be bad#right??? but no. but i saw him do a good thing. but maybe i didn't? I should probably take a stance on this.#and he makes this crowley's problem until the apocalypse but then the second he gets the chance to cram crowley and his feelings for him#back in a heaven approved box he jumps at it in a way that requires just being WILDLY insensitive and dismissive of crowley's feelings#he's not just being a dick about their relationship he is being a dick about crowley as a person. and he should know better but is choosing#not to because he wants the easy out so badly. anyway i love him he was my favourite character all season no notes (winepresswrath)

#the job flashback was the best at showing how heaven's sense of morality is... pretty messed up from a human pov#I honestly really liked how job was the one being 'tested' but aziraphale was basically going through the same thing#but in the end aziraphale though he lied and did get his beliefs somewhat shaken still ultimately believed in heaven's ideas of good + evil#which is how you get the edinburgh flashback wherein he decides bodysnatching is pure evil#at least until mr dubious surgeon argues it's necessary for the greater good. and uses the dead kid tumour as an instant KO#at which point aziraphale does a complete 180 and decides graverobbing is fine actually whilst crowley is there with his morality 101 ppt#pointing out how it's not as black and white as it all seems given yk poverty. the way the rich can protect their own bodies.#and even in the present day when given the deal aziraphale still rolls out the 'you're the bad guys' line and 'I forgive you'#he's seen enough to know better but is so deep into denial that it's going to take a shock to kick him out of it (hello s2 finale)#but yeah s2 was very much laying down aziraphale's arc whilst crowley had much less to do and I'd love if their arcs follow each other?#aziraphale knows he likes earth. he likes food music people. it's why he knows he wants to change things.#but aziraphale is also not really there with the nuance for all he's ahead of muriel gabriel etc.#meanwhile crowley could probably write novels on morality and his own philosophies on it. but he also would rather run away.#and yet whenever he's had the chance to (when he thought aziraphale was dead. the years after the failed apocalypse) he hasn't taken it#and it's shown time and again that he does actually care for people and for earth (in s2 alone there's the suicide prevention. job story)#but as the post puts waaaay better than me. he refuses to acknowledge what that means and the idea that he could be 'good' is offensive#(I say post above but the bit I'm referring to is in prev tags)#it's actually pretty fascinating he's thought out morality to such depth but refuses to apply that knowledge to himself#the two of them are both in denial over entirely different things but in the end it comes down to them not believing that they're 'good'#sorry this is just rambling but the post and prev tags are both going to be rattling in my head for a while (muninnhuginn)

I do gotta say tho, even tho I’m mad at aziraphale because he’s being a terrible boyfriend like what you said about the “I forgive you like” because WHAT. But also I really like the way the show really demonstrates the underlying cruelty of heaven and it’s angels. Really shows the hypocrisy of a group of beings who are supposed to do good, especially aziraphale who really buys into the heaven propaganda, who hurts people, particularly the person who means the most to him. Because like you said he fully just takes advantage of that devotion Crowley has for him. Insane, this shwo makes me INSANE

I missed this anon and yeah! The angels were one of my favourite parts of the season, and I think the strongest element aside from Neil Gaiman deciding he's just a simple man who wants to put his otp in situations. They are deeply awful and I kind of love them. They are the exact kind of moralizing hypocrites who are callous and cruel precisely because they think being on team good means everything they do is justified and it's actually impossible for them to be in the wrong (they're angels! is it even possible for them to do the wrong thing?).

but!! To me, they also seem like they're basically kids? Obviously they're not literally children, but there is this very consistent reoccurring joke about how childish/sheltered/immature they are. Muriel is the most obvious example, but the archangels come off like bratty twelve year olds to her sweet little kid.

Gabriel is basically teenager in love flipping off his family as he runs away with his backstreet guy. Uriel is constantly picking at Michael, Michael is playing at being in charge like it's a game, and it's ridiculously easy for both Aziraphale and Crowely to trick them obvious half assed lies. They're not allowed to ask questions! The Metatron treats them like badly behaved kids out past their curfew. At any point an old man with a beard may pop up to scold them and send them home, and they're all scared of doing something wrong by his standards and getting in trouble with this guy who is pointedly not God but who lines up exactly with the pop-culture idea of god the father, and who offers Aziraphale, among other things, a respite from the hard work of figuring out what the right thing to do is for himself. It's fine! You don't have to question the belief system you were born into or make a painful break with everything you've ever known! Aziraphale has had six thousand years on earth to grow up, but the other angels have been sitting in a sterile white box playing "i'm not touching you" games with each other and filing paperwork.

And I think that's extra interesting because this season also really emphasizes:

Heaven has Institutional Problems

Aziraphale isn't the only angel who's unhappy in heaven. Gabriel and Muriel were both completely miserable. They just didn't understand that they were unhappy because they'd never experienced anything else.

Angels who aren't Aziraphale can change and grow! There's very explicitly Gabriel being changed by love and Muriel growing up a bit on earth, and from a more fan-theory angle there's also Jimbriel, who I think is probably basically Gabriel minus the war and six thousand years of playing referee for Michael and Uriel while unleashing an assortment of plague and calamities on earth because that's God's will! Buck up champ.

We also get Gabriel and Beezelebub talking about how their underlings basically live for Armageddon, "if you can call that living." This is so bleak. They've all been on a six thousand year time out just dreaming of the day they get to beat the shit out of each other until they feel better, but it won't work because eternity is just more of the box.

Anyway I think it's going in a distinctly eden adjacent direction. Aziraphale is going to tempt those angels with knowledge and the capacity for change. I have veered so far from your ask anon i'm sorry you're right heaven really went all out on sucking this season & while Crowley and Aziraphale are both fucking it up Crowley refrains from being spectacularly cruel to Aziraphale about it and Aziraphale should learn to return the favour. I forgive you!! I forGIVE you. I forgive YOU. "you can be an angel again" is actually a worse thing to say than "you're a demon. i don't even like you." when he finally picks crowley over heaven i'm going to lose my mind.