Searching for Something

This scene happened in my head and now it exists in the world oop

GUYS! We need to talk about this.

Nigerian Citizens are currently protesting against Police Brutality.

An armed squad initially created to combat robbery has become a menace to society.

They harass citizens over unnecessary issues like hair styles or how they choose to present themselves, they extort us, abuse, rape and kill our people.

Over the years we have seen wrong arrests and brutal murders of innocent citizens.

Nigerians are tired and have come out to protest.

The world is silent and nobody is talking about this enough.

We need your support. Every life matters and is important. Boost this hashtag and get news outlets to speak on this.

Nigerian Youths carrying the weight of the Nation. Police brutality taking the lives of our brothers and sisters.

The word “man” was gender neutral and referred to both sexes until the 13th century

The female specific pronoun “she” was invented in the 12th century. 

The word “girl” was gender neutral and referred to children of both sexes until the 15th century

High heels were invented for men and were worn predominantly by men until the 16th century

From the mid 16th century to the 19th century boys would typically wear dresses until the age of 7

Until the early 1930s pink was considered the appropriate colour for baby boys and blue was the colour for baby girls

This speech-language pathologist taught her dog 29 words, and he can even form full sentences.

They do understand our words. This is not true of all domesticated animals (horses, for example, can only manage to distinguish a relatively small number of spoken commands…but boy do they know what you’re really saying).

They don’t understand “just your tone of voice” as a lot of people think.

As of 2016 the record vocabulary for a dog demonstrating understanding of words is over 1,000.

So if you give them a way to talk back, they’re going to use it.

The development of language skills is probably a side effect of domestication and of being kept in close contact with humans. A dog that was a better hunting partner would be kept and bred and over time they developed a better understanding of language.

In other words, dogs are pretty dang smart because we need them to understand us.

I took some objects and edited them onto Paper Star’s head

E n j o y

ok i figured i should probably do one of these just because ive read soooooo many fics and i need to have a list bc lists are nice

it’s the light (it’s the obstacle that casts it) by Handful_of_Silence - Aziraphale speaks Polari. It’s fucking excellent and so in character.

both of allegra @areyougonnabe‘s works greatest hits and it’s a new craze - both of these are just so well done and the supplemental material like the music and the fake social media posts and everything is just so well done and makes it all the more real and they’re both just such good fun to read for when you’re down. absolute teeth-rotting goodness.

The Cupid by maniacalmole - The character introduced to this one just fits so well into the book universe, and I love her, and the way she brings them together is very adorable. Heaven has office parties, both of them are clueless.

Salinity (And Other Measurements of Brackish Water) by @drawlight - this fic did something to me. it reads like poetry, and it does so well to pull at those little bits of longing and stretch them out. all of the symbolism and tenderness just eats away at me.

The Lightness of You by Rend_Herring - by god i know this one’s p popular judging by its kudos and views but if you read one fic on here please let it be this one holy shit. holy shit. it’s just like. its about the 6000 years, and crowley making the stars, and holy shitttt.

everything just stops by @nachashim - every day pj hate crimes me and they esp do it here. crowley gets dramatically drunk and in a fit melancholy conjures up and sits in a bathtub. it’s fucking excellent and soft and sweet.

Bad Grace by Quantum_Witch - When I was 15 I pulled up this fic on ff.net and pulled my first all nighter. I basically count this as the unofficial book sequel, as it sort of deals with the fallout and all of the characters it introduces are fucking amazing. There’s some bits I’m a bit iffy on in retrospect, but it’s very 2013 you’re-in-highschool-and-just-finished-reading-the-book satisfaction. Love it to death.

and, so on by @paintedvanilla​ - this one punched me in the gut. it’s so fucking excellent the way the story builds that when you get to the last line it just takes it all out of you. the longing in this, oh my god. and the imagery, and the–well, just the everything. i haven’t stopped thinking about this fic, truly.

henry @mortuarybees​ has a few that are excellent but the one that really got me first was  all i need, darling, is a life in your shape like the domesticity??? the dialogue???? aziraphale pining??? THEY SHARE A BED??? this is one of the first fics i read after watching the show and it killed me. good god.

Anthophilia by FortinbrasFTW - the best au out there i think. it’s just so sweet?? it’s basically crowley owns a plant shop, aziraphale is the new bookshop across the street, and they hooked up once in college. aziraphale doesn’t seem to remember it and look it’s just, like richard curtis romcom excellence.

Sudden and Surprising Moments of Overwhelming Affection by @forineffablereasons​ - this one got me good because it’s just. it’s about the pining. it’s about the talking for half an hour. it’s about the grandfather clock. it’s about many things and it kills me.

Potter Omens by sadaf - i read this in high school and it changed me. it’s such a good fusion and really builds up them becoming friends before getting together. the author really understands the characters from the book and builds this lovely little world for the two of them. it’s a good read for a lazy sunday or a late night.

but good omens the show also has a field day with aziraphale’s apprehensions about the whole thing. from his side of the relationship, aziraphale is continually in flux over whether he really accepts how important crowley is to him.

aziraphale’s development throughout the show is characterized by his ambivalence.

he’s an angel, a servant of god put on earth to do good. that does not include associating with demons on his checklist of holy deeds. repeatedly, aziraphale reasserts his role as the angel, taking shelter behind the straight and narrow that’s expected of him, whenever he feels that that particular sense of his identity is being threatened by his relationship with crowley.

of course, aziraphale then tends to undermine his own assertions.

funnily enough, it’s not the demon trying to play the long game of tempting an angel to fall. it’s the angel playing the long game of dancing the line—trying to maintain the best of both worlds: his identity as an angel, his loyalty to god and heaven; as well as his friendship with crowley.

and let’s be real. crowley has been well-aware of aziraphale’s uncertainty for a long time.

unlike aziraphale, crowley’s not interested in maintaining a healthy allegiance to hell or lucifer in the way that aziraphale continually turns back to heaven, to gabriel, and to god for approval or solutions. he does the bare minimum to keep himself bodily and metaphysically intact—and perhaps glean some personal satisfaction from a job well-done, even if it’s a somewhat malicious job.

after all, the evil deeds that he favors? well…

take hastur and ligur, dukes of hell and model representatives of what the place idealizes. their deeds on the day they deliver the antichrist are tempting a priest with lust and compelling a politician to accept a bribe. hastur gleefully kills a nun and sets a convent on fire, while ligur thinks favorably upon the idea of ripping a person’s right arm off. they’re up close and personal. direct responsibility over the corruption and destruction of individual souls.

crowley doesn’t favor that style. when he corrupts, he doesn’t shove a train off its tracks with his own hands. he creates a highway that radiates waves of general ill will, or shuts down london’s mobile phone network to make everyone just a little bit more irritable. when he acts upon his duties as a demon, crowley doesn’t do any more than any other normal human might encourage as a by-product of living in the same world. his deeds are the equivalent of someone cutting you off in traffic, or your cell signal cutting out from non-occult forces.

he preserves free will. sure, he made your day a bit worse, but really, the only one making the choice of taking that out on the people around you is you.

and don’t ask crowley to kill anyone. because frankly, judging by his distaste for god’s flood, jesus’s crucifixion, being the one to eliminate the antichrist? he’d really rather not.

he gave the paintball competitors real guns but ensured they wouldn’t kill anyone. he set a bucket of holy water on top of his door to kill whichever demon chose to come after him but didn’t put any in his plant mister.

crowley doesn’t have an ounce of real dedication to hell. he was and has only ever been the fallen angel who sauntered vaguely downwards.

so in this, he’s the antithesis to aziraphale’s vacillation. crowley has no ties holding him back from committing fully to a relationship with aziraphale. time and again, crowley is the one who initiates their interactions, who does him favors first, who saves him from discorporation, for no other benefit except companionship. and this frightens aziraphale.

it takes millennia for aziraphale to let down each barrier. and crowley remains patient. he understands his reluctance to leave the welcome arms of heaven behind. even after their 1862 fight in st. james’s park, crowley reappears out of nowhere nearly 80 years later to save aziraphale and his books and rejects the thanks he tries to give. on the day of the apocalypse, aziraphale yells to him that their friendship is over, and crowley still comes back begging him to run away with him to alpha centauri.

but at the same time… crowley refuses to make it easier for aziraphale.

some of his pushback to aziraphale’s generosity can definitely be attributed to difficulties with self-esteem. he’s still done hell’s work, after all, and coming from a place with demotivational posters that are basically depression on paper won’t do wonders for one’s ability to accept compliments.

but being a demon—being a fallen angel—is still central to who crowley is. while he may not hold any loyalty to hell because of it, he’s also not interested in returning to heaven. why would he be, when they cast him down into a pool of boiling sulphur only for asking questions? when they’re just as comfortable as hell with killing innocents and starting wars?

so when the end is nigh, and aziraphale is trying to imply his own solution to saving the both of them…

aziraphale has just gone begging to heaven to put an end to the apocalypse. and they told him no. the war has to be won.

he still doesn’t have the nerve to openly disobey heaven’s commands. and in his certainty that heaven will indeed win if the apocalypse happens, the only option that will allow aziraphale to remain on heaven’s side while preserving crowley’s life is if crowley returns to the host.

this suggestion, though, is not one crowley is willing to take.

a relationship with aziraphale is something crowley deeply values. but he won’t settle for an aziraphale that hasn’t accepted the full ramifications of what that entails—whether it’s the fact that crowley is a demon, full stop, with all the implications therein; or that to love him is reprehensible to heaven.

aziraphale’s blind loyalty to heaven and his relationship with crowley are incompatible, a fact that he’s spent the last 6 millennia ignoring. crowley has been patient, trying to allow aziraphale to come to terms with it in his own time, but aziraphale couldn’t balance the knife’s edge between them forever. as the apocalypse approaches, so too does the conflict in their relationship come to a head.

crowley demands that he make the choice.

and once again, aziraphale chooses heaven’s will over crowley.

it’s only when aziraphale tries to reason with heaven one last time, talking to the voice of god themself, and has utter failure spelled out to him in the sky, that aziraphale finally accepts that heaven has no interest in the compassion and love that he and crowley value so dearly. the choice between heaven and crowley—was never really such a difficult choice after all.

good omens the show is not only a 600k slow-burn between two mortal enemies, it’s a very human tale in which it’s not the demon that struggles with accepting their desire for love and companionship, but the angel. while good omens the book is as fabulous a piece of source material as a show could wish to have, the show is the story that flips the archetypal denial of one’s love on its head. it’s the being of “evil” that offers the outstretched hand and waits patiently for the being of “good” to take it.

aziraphale and crowley face down against their respective superiors together, against lucifer, against holy water and hell fire.

Also notice how the headline also mentions goats and pigs? By most scientific consensus, pigs are more intelligent than cats and play a culturally significant role in some of the island nations where they would be culled, yet there is not a single person in the notes here (so far) upset about culling pigs. Goats are as smart and loving as dogs, yet no upset about them.

Just because spay and neuter works for your area, does not mean it works internationally. If you think culling cats for the environment makes people sick then you might as well fuck off and stop caring about conservation.

When they get hit by a car, attacked by a predator, injured in a cat fight, bitten by a snake, or break a leg, there’s no one around to take them to a vet.

When they contract (and spread) diseases and fleas, are born with a genetic condition, get sick from malnutrition, get parasites, eat something toxic, become matted, or have problems in labor, there’s no one to help them.

It’s not helped by the fact that sick and injured cats like to hide.

They often have insecure access to food and clean water.