Rabbits are not what they seem to be

granted, i say this acknowledging that s3 was largely condensed due to constraints & therefore the pacing might have been a bit fast, but i see less people complaining about that & more about the characterization. nevertheless, worth mentioning.

it just boggles my mind when i see people coming up with all kinds of excuses as to why aziraphale & crowley wouldn't have sacrificed themselves because they love each other so much.

& i just have to ask- did we watch the same series? where time & time again, they stuck their own necks out & risked their wellbeings to save humanity from unfair divine punishment? joh & his children, armageddon 1, etc? the entire show has revolved around crow & azzy hearing the demands of god & taking pause or holding reluctance when they think about how that's going to affect the humans involved, from few to all of the world's population. they struggle with maintaining their rigid roles as a " good angel " & " evil demon " when their core beliefs are challenged by their respective sides. crowley fell SPECIFICALLY because he challenged god's whims when he found the things she was doing questionable or unfair. aziraphale is looked down upon by his fellow angels by trying to uphold a utilitarian philosophy & not just following the grain.

TELL ME THEN, why it is that - after all of that, you would assume that crowley & aziraphale would choose each other, at the end of the world where nothing remains, over there being a chance of restoring humanity - without all the divine forces that threatened it's chances beforehand? & i'm not saying they didn't DEEPLY care for each other, but it's a core part of their characters that they just as DEEPLY care about the state of humanity! this is why they are outcasts of their respective sides! because they view people with value where heaven & hell view humanity as obstacles or pawns.

i've seen people go " oh but crowley would / has mowed down a handful of people for aziraphale's sake, what makes you think he wouldn't take out the whole world for him "

all of humanity & life on earth > a handful of people threatening their lives / mission to Preserve humanity. like, what

i also see people argue that they could have rewritten the book of life & as nice as an idea as that would be... i don't think that's at all feasible? the book of life had a page dedicated to everything in existence, correct? the angels have walked the earth for hundreds of years, but still don't know everything there ever was - at least to the extent that god would have. i don't think they could possibly document it all & set everything back to relatively the way it was, or even make it decent! ( &, mind you, this is just assuming that writing in the bookshop's blank books would have worked to restore it all / they had the divine power to DO so, which seems unlikely ) they still have to be coached on acknowledging their emotions & faults & even the names of simple objects sometimes, but sure - they could restore the world themselves & run it.

but then free will, which they've fought for since the beginning, wouldn't exist. the point of getting rid of gods & heaven / hell was to erase the divine forces that wrote the world like a story & directed every chapter, treating humanity - once more, like obstacles or pawns, bent to follow these strict roles & rules that everyone is born into & has to adhere with no choice at all. should the angels / demons disobey, they're obliterated, & humanity is damned if they are not deemed " good " by a corporately-run heaven. as established numerous times, crowley nor aziraphale are the pure pinnacles of good nor evil, they are not the " exception ", they couldn't create a world better than their predecessors just because they happened to go against their obviously tarnished will. further, the point is that humanity is not lorded over by ANYONE.

it's sort of like if the government as we know it were completely obliterated & we let people live by simpler laws but those laws were still mandated / created by one person that was deemed " good enough " to do it. what was the point of abolishing the government to begin with, do you think it'll be different because some " good person " is running it now? do you think they'll remain an unchanging beacon of goodness for the rest of their lives?

alternatively noted; " they could have asked god to restore the world as it was, " & then they'd be in the same situation with a divine hierarchy, constantly threatening war with each other, humanity stuck inbetween as an ineffable casualty, with likely the same end of the world outcome still fated to happen. maybe crowley & aziraphale would still exist, but for how long? the world would still end so long as there was still a prideful heaven or hell & AGAIN, do you really think they'd put themselves before the whole humanity when their entire roles in the show revolve around being subversions to what their sides want - which is total destruction of such for the sake of their own individual prides?

also people who think s3's ending is some kind of queer erasure or whatever are making me develop tumors, i am not even going to dignify responding to the thought.*

anyway my eyes are growing heavy because i sat upright in bed at 7am to write this so here's just some rehash i typed out on discord that maybe sounds more coherent than any of this

again, have your feelings on the series finale, but i'd really think about projecting your opinion as matter-of-fact & for the love of god can some of you start making more fanart. why am i seeing more hate than fanart, can you put that passion somewhere more creatively

*i'm a demon i lied

i was replying to something a friend said where THEIR friend said that the physical erasure of aziraphale & crowley was comparable to the erasure of queerness from the current state of our world, --v